Endland
by Seeroftodayandtomorrow
Summary: Apocalypse Au. Kurt is a prostitute, jaded from the way his world fell apart. Blaine is a policeman, trying to maintain some kind of order in the midst of chaos. When Kurt discovers something that may cost him his life, he wants to pay Blaine for his protection - in the way he usually does. But he soon discovers that sex with Blaine can never be just business.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Thanks to my beta, voyageasia!**  
**I stole the title and the setup from a German table top role playing game.**  
**This is an Apocalypse-Au, which means a lot of dead people. Not Kurt and Blaine, though :) There will also be some violence, though not too graphic, and prostitution. If any of that bothers you, please don't read.**

Kurt flees when the water closes in. Unlike many others, he survives the first flood, because he doesn't bother to try and salvage any of his few belongings first. He runs with nothing but the clothes on his back.

He is probably more observant than most. He watched the tides rise over the years, and he is convinced it is nothing that would just _stop, _as a lot of others seem to think. Seven years ago, his parents' house, once a comfortable distance away from the edge of the sea, was washed away, taking his parents and most of their belongings with it.

He built a hut out of driftwood higher up, took the first boat that was washed ashore, repaired it and tried to keep up business. Soon, however, he had to admit that it wouldn't work. Like most children, he had learned his father's trade from the cradle. It wasn't that he doesn't know anything about being a fisherman; he knows everything there is to know. He even has some knowledge about his father's side-business of boat repairs. He even is good at it, to some degree, but he found he couldn't do the work alone that used to keep all three of them busy. Even if he only had himself to sustain now.

So, soon he took up a side-business of his own. It started with a rushed hand job for the butcher behind his house when his wife, tired from another pregnancy, took a nap, and a free side of lamb for Kurt. It takes off from there. He doesn't mind much. There is a grim satisfaction when the same people that had mocked him as a child for his slight build and peculiar ways are now begging for him and panting his name. It pays well, and it isn't as hard as the backbreaking work most of his neighbors do.

So it isn't that he doesn't mind leaving his village and all his belongings when the water comes. It takes time to establish a clientele, after all, and ironically he became good friends with a lot of them over the years.

It's just that he knows he can get by anywhere, and he is pretty sure that what he has to offer will always find buyers.

So he runs. The water rises quickly and higher than anyone could imagine, and it doesn't leave again. It is always there when he turns, and closer than he would like, a brown mass of water with trees and remains of houses and a lot of bodies swimming in it. But he gains ground and soon the water isn't just a day's walk behind him, but further away. He warns people as he passes. Some heed him, some don't. There has been other alarming news: it's not just the water. In the South, the mountains explode, giving the name of the old children's game, 'The floor is lava', a whole new, deadly meaning. In the North, winds arise that soon become one strong, insistent storm that makes the land uninhabitable and destroys everything in its wake. In the West, there are landslides, burying everything under a layer of mud.

"The elements take revenge," superstitious people say. "Man has become too confident, too sure of his own importance. This is nature taking care of the problem."

Kurt doesn't know if this is true. He doesn't really care, to be honest. He runs for his life, though he doesn't know where. If there is danger everywhere, does it even make sense to run? But the alternative is to just sit somewhere and wait till he drowns, so he runs.

The things he sees during his escape aren't pretty. He sees people being attacked and sometimes killed for their coat or a piece of bread they might be carrying. Fresh graves, lovingly if hurriedly dug by people who lost a loved one on the flight, are looted for any possession that might be left on the body.

But there's kindness also, strangers taking turns carrying a small child as the mother becomes too weak, an old man declaring himself too old to flee offering his home as shelter for fugitives, people sharing food and companionship on the way.

He runs for days, weeks, and he loses count of time. He sleeps when he dares, on the side of the road, hidden in bushes, his knife always close. He doesn't think, doesn't feel anything past his exhaustion and his hurting feet, and the ever-present fear. He's too busy trying to somehow survive, and sometimes, it's a close call. Some people think he's weak and want his boots or his knife, but he's a lot stronger than he looks, muscles lean but still steeled by work, and there are still some decent people who help him fight off the attackers, who afterwards even share their food and the comparative security of a night not spent alone.

He eats what he can get. Sometimes, nothing. On some days, he finds enough on the way to get by, on others, he is entirely dependent on the kindness of strangers, which is fickle at best. He can't trade for what he needs, because he doesn't own anything, and it turns out that people who run for their lives have other things on their minds than sex.

His skills all seem useless here. No fishing; he'd have to go back to the water and there's no way he's doing that; also, he'd probably catch all kinds of things other than fish. He earns a scant meal helping to fix the broken axis of a wagon, but most people are on foot, carrying whatever belongings they have left on their backs. No singing, either. Though it's the thing he's always been best at, people at home have found it too frivolous -you can't eat music, after all. And here, it's out of place at best and actually dangerous at worst. So, no music to brighten their journey (is it a journey? Doesn't a journey need a destination?). So be it.

Eventually, the flight loses its urgency, as things are prone to do. The water is days away, and though he hears it's still rising, it is slower now. Kurt entertains a mild, detached curiosity as to how much longer he'll have to go until he first sees the earth that has buried everything beneath it. Or the lava, if he should turn south. Or if the winds in the North have slowed down too, maybe enough that people could go back and start rebuilding. Mostly, though, he avoids thoughts like this, as any thought at all that doesn't have to do with how to survive one more day.

Then, one morning, he trips and falls. The thing he trips over is a boot half-buried in the grass, and he carefully avoids looking at it, because while it might just be discarded and full of holes, there is also the possibility that something might still be sticking in it, _out _of it, and he very much prefers not to know. People may have stopped drowning, mostly, but that doesn't mean they have stopped dying.

When he tries to rise, he finds his ankle hurts, badly.

He knows there's not much use in calling for help. People won't answer, everyone is too tied up in their own struggle. He tries it anyway, calls until he is hoarse, and defiantly refuses to cry. He clenches his teeth against the pain and stands up, limps a few steps, finds he can bear it. Still, there's no way he can go on running like he did. He needs to rest for a few days and just hope that the pain goes before the water comes.

So, he limps on, away from the road and the suspicious boot, steadying himself on the occasional tree until he finds a stick to support him. He finds a clearing that is actually quite pleasant, but when he hears water, he panics, looking wildly around, wondering if he has gone back farther than he thought. He prepares to run for his life, the pain in his ankle be damned, but when his heart ceases to beat quite so loudly, he can hear that it can't be the flood. It's a small sound, nothing as loud and threatening like the sound of the approaching sea; more of a ripple, and behind some trees, he discovers a small stream.

That settles it. He'll stay here, just for a few days until walking doesn't hurt so much anymore.

His sense of time is vague at best, but he thinks he ends up staying two weeeks.

It's just so nice. For the first time since the water came, something is just nice. He is alone, surrounded by singing birds and the much too trusting hares that he catches and cooks, though not without regret. He washes in the stream, himself as well as his clothes, and though the already threadbare fabrics lose on substance, it feels luxurious.

He makes himself a bed out of moss and soft grass, and he sleeps a lot. Deeply, too, not on constant alert like he had on the road, with his knife always in his hand, and slowly, the bone-deep weariness that had seemed like the normal state of things subsides.

The weather stays cold and clear for the most part, and though he is miserable when it rains, he dries soon enough.

He very industriously avoids thinking about the way his world had ended, how everyone he knew is probably dead, how he has no where to go and no idea if, say, a month from now he'll still be alive.

He doesn't recognize his reflection in the stream. The put together, slight, pale young man he had been has become rugged. He is tanned, his freckles are more pronounced, and he has grown a beard that he hates but has no means to get rid of. His clothes, once simple but of good quality and tailored, are not much more than rags now.

They don't do much to keep out the cold anymore.

One night, he wakes because he is so cold, and he realizes that he has no idea how to survive outside in winter. Will he be able to find food, will there be shelter? How will he keep warm?

He doesn't know.

His foot has long since stopped to hurt, but still, he stays. He likes it here, and even if he leaves, goes on the road again, where will he go? Where is there to go?

Only then the nights become so cold he is hardly able to sleep at all, even huddled to his little fire, and the grass in the mornings is covered with white frost. And he realizes that if he stays, one morning not so far away, he won't wake up.

So he leaves.

He is alone now; the road is empty. Even the slowest of those that haven't drowned are now in front of him, gone for many days.

The water, if it is still rising, must be close now, no more than a few days behind. Sometimes he thinks he can hear it. He has dawdled too long.

Still, in some ways, it feels good to be on the road again, to be doing something. Somewhere in his mind, he is aware that his time on the meadow was nothing more than a wait for something to happen, anything, even death. He doesn't want to die; after all, he chose to run again over dying a gentle death by freezing. Now, at least he feels he is actively choosing life, even if he still doesn't know where he is going, or how long life is going to last.

He spends his lonely days on the road and his cold, miserable nights on the side of it. Now, he sings as he walks, any song he remembers, loud, unafraid. But when he curls up somewhere to try and get some sleep, more often than not he finds himself crying. He doesn't really know why (except he does, of course), and he angrily brushes the tears away before sheer exhaustion forces him to sleep.

In the end, it doesn't take long. One morning, after walking just a few miles, when the sun is rising above the horizon, he sees a town.

A city, really, as in addition to the older, solid houses, flimsy barracks are being built to accommodate the masses of fugitives that have arrived. There are people everywhere in the city.

And they are building a wall around it.


	2. Chapter 2

It's not so far after all. He arrives shortly before noon, though it's hard to tell exactly on such a cloudy, rainy day. A few steps before the wall-to-be he stands and just - stares. He has never seen so many people before, which is somewhat ironic considering that a few weeks before, there were a lot more people than there are now. Some part of his mind tells him to be glad that all those people survived, and he is, he really is, but just now, it's hard to feel this way. Everything is overwhelming, and somehow, it hits him now: that his old life is over for good. That nothing in his life will ever be the way it once was.

He shakes his head quickly and violently to get over the feeling. This is not the time: already he can see curious eyes directed at him. Not the place to break down; there is no way but forward. So he takes a deep breath and walks towards the person nearest to him. Or perhaps there's another one who's a bit nearer, but the one he chooses, he looks at him...a little less curiously, more welcoming. As if, and he is aware how absurd that is, as if he were truly happy to see him.

"Um," he says, his voice hoarse. It's not in disuse, he has sung a lot the last few days, but he still has to clear his throat and try again. He hasn't talked to another person in weeks.

"Hi," he starts again, hesitantly meeting the friendly, expectant eyes of the other man. He seems to be a guard of some kind, a soldier; he has a battered gun by his side and wears something that is probably supposed to pass for a uniform.

"I'm - can I ask you a question?"

"You're new, aren't you? I'm glad you're here," the guard says, and Kurt understands what he doesn't say: _I'm glad you're alive._ Either way, he appreciates the sentiment. He manages a smile in thanks.

"Um, what's with the...wall?" he asks. _What - or whom - are you trying to keep out?_

"Look, if you're new here, you have to get registered. I'll take you to the office, and on the way, I'll explain everything you need to know, alright? Including the wall."

"Register, huh? I'm glad to hear bureaucracy hasn't died."

It's meant to be a joke, but the guard doesn't laugh. He just smiles a little tight-lipped and explains,

"It's necessary so we can estimate how many people live here. We are already rationing the food, because if there isn't any arable land again soon, there will be problems. I'm sure you'll agree it's better to be prepared."

Kurt mumbles something incomprehensible, because this is something he hasn't thought of at all, and also it does nothing to answer his questions, instead raising about fifty new ones.

"So, officer - the wall?" he prompts, but the man beside him laughs a little and says,

"Please don't call me officer. I'm just part of the new militia, we don't have an official title yet."

"So what do I call you?"

"Well - my name is Blaine."

"Kurt," Kurt says, taking the offered hand and then staring at Blaine as long as it takes to make him laugh sheepishly, look away and say,

"Right, the wall. This town here, it's presumably the only one left. We're right in the middle. A few miles in any direction, and you walk right into water, lava, depends on where you go. This town is the only place left, everything else is gone. We don't know if this place is safe. We've been spared yet, but who knows? So the wall is us trying to feel a little bit safer. It won't do much against storms, of course, but maybe it will help keep the water and the other stuff out. You're expected to put in a few hours a day to help building it. You'll be given food, somewhere to stay, and some clothes if you need them in return."

"So you're not trying to keep anyone out? People, I mean?"

Blaine looks at him strangely. "I don't think anyone else is coming. Before you, there haven't been any new arrivals for at least a week. I think everyone else is just...gone."

It is strange how a thought like that kills all conversation. Silently, they walk beside each other, Kurt is lost in his own thoughts, but he can't really tell what he's thinking. Everything is jumbled, but first and foremost in his mind is a sense of relief. For the moment, at least, he is safe, as safe as can be with forces of nature closing in from every direction. He even feels this sense of purpose, anticipates the feeling of doing something to protect them, even though he strongly suspects that the reason for the wall is to give people this feeling just as much as to provide some protection.

He looks around a bit as they walk. He is still too overwhelmed to really take everything in, but what little he sees overwhelms him even more. Houses made of stone, old ones that are four or five stories high - no one knows how to build like that anymore. There even are a few cars, and he gapes a bit, remembering the uproar the one time a car came into his village. He can see, though, that they are not used to drive around right now. There are blankets and clothes lying in some of them, and he guesses they are used as additional places to sleep.

He registers quickly with a too formal official, and afterwards, he feels...bleak. Once more, it settles in that everything is different now. He is now an official citizen of a new city - the only city left, apparently, and god, does that feel weird.

Blaine, who seems to have nothing better to do than show him around all day, picks up on his mood.

"You'll get used to this. We'll all get used to this. Look at the bright side: you survived until now, didn't you? You lived through yet another apocalypse."

"I wasn't alive during the last one," Kurt says sullenly, but Blaine is right. Some ancestor of his survived the last apocalypse, about a hundred years ago, that didn't only cost a lot of lives but also whole civilizations they see the remains of but know nothing about. Someone of his family made it through that one so that Kurt could survive this. Talk about some resilient genes.

Blaine leads him through the city, back to the building site, where builders are given food and clothing stamps and are assigned some place of accommodation. Kurt doesn't expect much, and that's exactly what he receives. Still, the clothes he is given may be threadbare and not fit exactly, but they do more than only cover the necessary places, and he is pathetically grateful for the warmth they offer. He is asked if he wants a razor, and he nods emphatically and promises himself a lot of private time with it as soon as he gets to a place with some water.

His new lodgings are a cot in a one-room wallboard hut, one of three, but his roommates aren't there. He feels a little lost without Blaine, who has gone back to his duties, but he takes the opportunity of the privacy to make use of the bowl of fresh water on the single dresser and wash and finally get rid of the beard. Then he sits down on the cot he assumes is his; the others have nails in the walls behind them with clothing hung on them. He dresses in his new clothes and lays the old ones down on the bed to mark it as his, resolving to find needle and thread as soon and possible to see if he can salvage anything. He has a feeling he shouldn't let anything go to waste.

Then he ventures outside once more. He blinks; the light seems too bright after the dim interior of the hut, despite the overcast sky, and when he can see properly again, he gulps. It will take time to find his place among all those people, who all look so busy and as if they belong exactly where they are, leaving him on the outskirts, a mere observer.

He sighs, and walks over to the buildings site, rolls up his sleeves, and goes to work.

A few days go by. He meets his roommates, two girls called Santana and Rachel who are, as far as he can tell, completely different but both equally hard to bear. Santana seems constantly angry, and is either taciturn in a sullen, poisoning way, or downright mean. Rachel is so naïve it hurts, and much too chatty for his frayed nerves. He is polite but distant, as is his way, though both of them seem to do their best to provoke him to the cutting, cold remarks he was feared for in his village.

He soon is in the hut only to sleep.

He looks around the city as soon as he dares without Blaine, or anyone, to guide him. He marvels at the high buildings and the cars, and wishes for his dad to be here; he would have given a lot to see this. He even talks to people and kind of makes friends with Millie, the lady who passes out their small meals and the excuse for coffee they get. He doesn't know if that's a blessing, though; she is sweet, but she tells him things about the food he'd rather not know.

"It's thin, but it's real coffee. When that's gone, it'll be ground nuts with sugar and some charcoal for color. When the nuts and the sugar are gone...well, you can imagine," she says, and, "We've already planted a lot of potatoes. They don't need much ground and keep well. Prepare to eat a lot of them. If it gets really bad, they're fine in a stew with rats. And mud, for the trace elements."

No, he really could have done without that knowledge.

He doesn't talk to Blaine again, though he sees him around a lot, and he waves and smiles at him but is always too busy to talk. Kurt watches him assign people their places at the wall or break up fights with a stern, but infuriatingly benevolent expression on his face, and he can't see why everyone seems to trust him so much, to trust him to have only their best interests at heart, to care. Except then again, he can.

He works on the building site a lot, and uses the time for...well, networking. After all, while the necessities are taken care of now, a time will come when the wall is finished, and it's best to be prepared. So, when a guy he pisses off somehow tells him to suck his dick, he replies, "Sure, if you can pay." He gets flipped off, but word spreads, and soon other guys approach him who take his offer seriously. It isn't an established clientele yet, and it takes some time for him to determine what he should take as payment - there's no money, but he trades his services for needles and thread, food stamps, a blanket.

So, the next time he sees Blaine, Kurt has his mouth wrapped around the cock of some guy who stands against the wall, eyes closed and mouth open in ecstasy. It's dark, and they're in a small alley, but Blaine finds them nevertheless. Kurt hears him clear his throat, and he lifts a finger to indicate he should wait, never interrupting his ministrations. When he feels the guy is close, he pulls of and lets him spill on the ground, finally lifting his head.

"Hi Blaine," he says, rises and dusts his knees while his client gathers his breath, presses some food stamps into his hands, smiles, and disappears.

"You can't do that, you know," Blaine says.

"I can, though. I'm actually very good at it."

Blaine grins, though Kurt has the feeling he'd rather not. "I mean, you can't do that in public."

"It's a back alley, Blaine, it's hardly public. Plus, I can't very well take them home. I have two roommates, it might hurt their delicate sensitivities."

Though at least in Santana's case, he doubts there are any sensitivities left to be hurt.

"You have to make arrangements. It's public indecency, Kurt, I can't allow that," Blaine says, then smiles at him. "Now, do you want to get dinner together?"

Kurt smiles and nods. He isn't fooled, though. He's seen the way Blaine looked at him while he was blowing that guy, and it was anything but offended.


	3. Chapter 3

**Thanks again to voyageasia for her help and encouragement!**

**And sorry it took so long. I'll try to not let it happen again.**

A few weeks pass, and Kurt starts to believe they might actually survive. The wall is nearly ready, seven feet high in places, ugly and uneven, but apparently sturdy enough to withstand the force of the elements.

For the elements are there. There's a sort of beach outside the wall, and then there's water, just water, nothing else to see. When the sunlight glistens on the surface, it's beautiful, until the occasional bloated corpse bobs up. It doesn't happen often, though; most corpses have long since become fish food.

Kurt loves walking along the top of the wall, ostensibly looking out for construction flaws and places that need repair, but really, he is just looking and enjoying the peace and quiet. It is still hard for him, being here with so many others. He's used to a lot of solitude, and he thinks now he never really appreciated it. But now, with two loud and nosy roommates and a very small space in a city that still seems overcrowded to him, solitude has become something rare, and he finds himself cherishing it whenever he can get it.

The view is...beautiful, actually, in a very wild, scary way. He has circled the city now, seen everything, and he still can't believe the devastation.

Water to one side, as far as the eye can see. No trace that there's ever been anything else. Mud to the other side of the city, a great brown mass of dark, wet earth that lets nothing grow, that swallows everything.

The third side looks spookiest: a jagged landscape of black, with puddles and streams of red in it so bright they color the sky. It looks like a painting, until one of the puddles starts to bubble and spit lava.

But it's the fourth side that scares Kurt the most, and not because the wind's almost enough to blow him off the wall. Because there's nothing. Oh, he knows it's really just dust and fine sand that's filling the air because the ever-blowing wind doesn't let it fall down again, but it looks like there's absolutely nothing there.

He doesn't go to that side anymore, although he probably should, because when - if - everything should stop at some point, that'll be the side that could be made habitable again first. But he doesn't care. He leaves that side to braver souls, instead staring for hours at the image of hell the world has become, in a way that's detached and comforting, because it doesn't force him to realize that it's his world.

He makes jokes about it. All of them do, coarse ones that aren't really funny, like saying they should start catching fish on the East side of the city, then walk round to the South to barbecue it.

It helps them cope.

The only one Kurt knows who doesn't do it is Blaine. He just looks at him, a small, sad smile playing around his lips, and goes right back to telling him the new rules the Administration has established.

Like, as of today, no one is allowed on top of the wall anymore, except authorized personnel for maintenance purposes.

Apparently, on the water side, a big wave caught two spectators unaware and flushed them down the wall, drowning them. So now, for safety reasons, the wall is taboo.

And Kurt soon finds he can't stand it.

He doesn't belong here. He's used to it - he hadn't belonged in his village either. But still, it's unsettling that even here, with people from all over, so different and only here because there's no where else to go, even here he's an outsider. Maybe it's hard to belong anywhere with what he does. It doesn't tend to let people warm up towards him, and though at home, he had a few friends, there were always those who looked down on him, too. Those who didn't like what he did with their husbands or friends. Here, people only look down on him - those who know about him, anyway. He's a small fish here, and not the only one by far in his line of business. Which is good because the derision isn't directed at him alone, but also means that his clientele is a lot more limited.

He needs space. He needs solitude, a break from whispers, offers, spits, moans. Even from being ignored, even from being talked to in a friendly, neutral way. A break from people.

He needs the wall.

He won't get privacy anywhere else; he still hasn't really made the effort to get to know his roommates, though at least Rachel has made numerous attempts. She has her own story, he knows; he hears her crying at night. But then, everyone has them, stories. He doesn't go to her, doesn't offer comfort. He just turns on his cot and tries to block out the sound.

Why care, when everything can fall to pieces at any moment, when they might all die tomorrow?

But then again, there's Blaine, who has somehow managed to worm his way into Kurt's ...affections without even trying. Or, with trying, but Blaine tries with everyone; Kurt has never met anyone who was liked by just about everyone, and it makes him kind of proud to be one of the few who are actually friends with him.

But Blaine won't give him back the wall. He sticks to the rules too much for that, he is always the one who explains the rules to Kurt when he complains, who sees everything Administration does in the best light.

"It's for your own safety," he says, and Kurt can't help but nod.

"But I'm going crazy in here!" he whines a moment later, and Blaine gives him a look that says he is maybe about to perhaps almost lose his patience.

"Adapt," he says with an apologetic shrug to accompany the blunt words. "We all have to do it."

So he has to find another way to get back the wall. Fortunately, there are other guards, those that actually stand at the few stairwells leading up, and he knows at least one who might...not be as straight as he thinks. Or if he is, Kurt has ways to make him forget that - at home, whether his clients were married to men or women, when they got bored with their spouses, they came to him. Here, it is different, as there are enough female whores to be had if one is so inclined - but he hasn't lost the confidence in his ability to make someone forget their sexual orientation for, say, the duration of a blowjob.

He acts strategically - no need to frighten the poor man by dropping to his knees and opening his pants without some sort of preamble. He walks past the stairs every day during the guard's shift and stops to chat with him.

The guard looks good in his uniform - or what passes as a uniform, standing tall and confident. But sometimes, or so it seems to Kurt, he looks like he'd rather be anywhere else. He looks like someone trying to mend his image, and his outgrowing hairstyle - shaved on the sides, longer in a narrow stripe in the middle - confirms this assumption. He seems like someone who wouldn't mind bending the rules every now and then, for the right enticement.

Kurt makes sure the guard knows about the way he makes his living, and he seems...curious, and when Kurt, after a few of their short daily chats, starts to flirt a little, the guard flirts back skillfully, even though it's clear he's more used to doing that with women.

Kurt has to be careful. He still hasn't managed to find a safe place for his trysts, and the streets are, apart from uncomfortable, not really popular with the general population for his kind of employment. He has been fined twice now, once by Blaine after he had caught him in the act for the third time. _Blaine_ has fined him, and he didn't even smile or apologize. Kurt would sacrifice his friendship to Blaine for his job, of course he would, but he'd much rather avoid it.

So, after a few weeks, he brushes the front of the guard's pants with the back of his hand, and then smiles and retreats into the shadows under the stairs, hoping there will be a spot unobtrusive enough for a quick though spectacular blowjob. He stands there for a while and begins to think the guard has changed his mind or didn't understand the invitation, when he appears, looking nervously around and then leans against the wall.

He gulps, starts to speak, stops, then starts again. "What...what do you want?"

A direct approach that Kurt honors with an equally direct response. "I want to be able to go on the wall."

"That's forbidden."

"I know." He puts his hand on the guard's pants and squeezes, once, what is clearly an at least half-hard cock.

The guard groans and bucks against him, but Kurt takes a step back and looks at him expectantly, until he says, quickly, "Go at dawn, half an hour is all I can give you. We have breakfast then, the wall is unguarded for a few minutes, and then I have the first round. Don't get seen by someone else."

"I won't," Kurt says, and gets on his knees.

So now, Kurt rises early like in his fisherman days, but it's worth it.

He doesn't like keeping secrets from Blaine, who offers his only other source of enjoyment in this strange city, but there's no way he would understand. Kurt doesn't want to put him in a position where he would have to choose between their friendship and his loyalty to Administration, especially since there's no way to know how Blaine would decide.

But he has the wall back. He lives for this half-hour every morning that is over much too soon and still gives him enough strength to be able to face the day. When once, a different guard has the first round and almost sees him, he has to run, almost falls and finally stops, panting, only to realize he's arrived at the North side, the one he usually avoids. Cautiously, he looks, and somehow, it doesn't scare him as much anymore. He stands, looks into the vast nothingness, and feels his own insignificance.

It is comforting.


	4. Chapter 4

**Warnings for mentions of cannibalism and dead children.**

**Thanks to my game master Frank for allowing me to use the term 'streetsweeper'.**

**And, as always, thanks to my beta voyageasia.**

They say it has to get worse before it can get better. Well, it has to get better soon, because if it gets any worse, they'll all be dead.

They are now, officially, starving. Kurt has long since given up on thinking about what it is that he's eating; the only thing that counts is that he's eating. Anything that gives his stomach even the illusion of food is welcome. Everyone in the city is so thin. In combination with the cold that makes them huddle in their insufficient clothes in their mostly insufficient shelters, they look like ghosts, not people. A few babies have been born, weak and malnourished, but they die soon because their starving mothers don't have enough milk to feed them.

Then there are, as always, those who seek to profit from other people's misery. The serving areas where what food they have is distributed are heavily guarded, and smart people eat their share right there and then, because apparently whatever is taken where the militia is not present is fair game.

People fight for everything. The days of comparative peace and quiet in their overcrowded city are definitely over. Guards are everywhere, and Kurt hasn't talked to Blaine in days because he's always working, or sleeping and then going right back to work, trying to maintain some sort of order. The guards' job isn't easy, either. People are desperate, and the guards are just as thin and weak as the rest of them. They are discouraged from using their weapons so as to not end any more lives. Sometimes the threat suffices, but often, they have to get creative.

When one guard uses a broom handle to break up a fight, leaving one or two of the participants with a lump on their heads as a reminder, the militia gets a nickname: Streetsweepers. As they've never been given an official name, the moniker sticks, and soon, everybody calls them this.

Kurt laughs about this for days, but never in Blaine's face. He knows it would hurt his feelings, and he looks worn and tired enough these days. But after a few days, Blaine accepts the name and even sees honor in it: those that keeps things clean. It's as good a job as any, he says.

Kurt himself doesn't do much. People don't really have anything to give anymore, and most are too busy trying to survive anyhow to think about sex.

He still goes on the wall, even though climbing the stairs feels harder every day and, once on top, he feels more fragile than ever, ready for the wind to snap him in two or carry him away.

Sometimes, he hopes for this.

He still is afraid, though. He doesn't stand up anymore when he's on the North side. He crouches, trying to give the wind as little surface as possible.

And then, one day, he can see the ground. At least he thinks so. He has never seen the ground before, not on this side, and as he looks, bending dangerously far over the edge of the wall, he still isn't completely sure. It looks mostly like the rest of the world on this side does, but still, there's a difference – he thinks.

On the second day, he is a little more certain, and on the third day, he is almost completely sure. He can see the ground. Which means that there's less sand and dust in the air, which, in turn, means – it has to mean that the wind weakens.

After a week of watching, hoping and agonizing, he finally has the confidence to tell someone. Not Blaine; he still doesn't know about the wall, and Kurt would like to keep it that way.

He goes to 'his' guard instead. although he has developed the unflattering and rather stupid habit of looking around him when ever he's talking to Kurt, as if to make sure nobody sees them together. As Kurt is not so much of an outcast that people won't talk to him, he can only guess it's because the guard is afraid people might somehow discover what Kurt has done to him.

"Puck," he says when the streetsweeper is finally sure they're clear to talk, "I need you to see something."

He hears nothing, and he hates the feeling that whatever happens is out of his hands now. Administration can't know it was him who saw the wind go down, so he can hardly go and inquire what they plan to do. It drives him crazy. He tosses and turns at night, to the point that his roommates notice. Santana just snaps at him to at least be quiet enough that others can sleep, but Rachel starts asking questions. Most of the time he pretends he doesn't hear.

Then, Blaine comes to him, his arms behind his back, trying and failing to hide a grin. He looks like he has a secret, a good one, that he's just dying to tell, and Kurt doesn't have it in him to act unconcerned for too long. Not when Blaine looks that excited.

"So you know how you're always complaining about suffocating in here and needing to get out?"

Kurt knows. He also knows that there really isn't much use complaining, but he can't seem to stop.

"What would you say if I told you that a few chosen people have actually the chance of going out and that if you wanted you could be one of them?"

"I'd say you better be serious, or I'll give you to Millie and she'll put you in the soup."

He winces; it's the sort of callous joke all of them make but Blaine doesn't like at all (They haven't yet started to eat each other; at least Kurt thinks they haven't, but who knows what's in the soup? But then, they're not too far from that point, either.).

This time though, Blaine doesn't seem to mind; he keeps on grinning and actually bounces a little on the balls of his feet.

"I'm serious. It seems that in the North, the winds have gone down enough that a few brave people can venture outside. It'll be dangerous, but I'll be going, and if you want, you could come too."

Kurt just has to hug him then, he can't help it. He pulls away quickly, though; in general, people don't really like to be hugged by him; although they'd never admit it, they think the touch of a whore only serves one goal.

Blaine doesn't let him go. He hugs back, pulls him closer and actually lifts him off his feet, and Kurt, for just a moment, lets himself enjoy the touch that comes with no expectations.

"It'll be dangerous," Blaine warns again, but Kurt shrugs.

"We're dying, Blaine. It can't really get more dangerous than that, can it?"

There's six of them, in the end. Kurt will never understand it, but there haven't been more volunteers, even though Administration had wanted at least ten to go. It seems that most people prefer the known suffering to the unknown, even if it might be an improvement. Kurt for one can't wait to go; he sits through the prep meetings mentally shuffling his feet.

Kurt doesn't bother to learn the names of his fellow explorers. He has no doubt he will get to know them eventually, not that he cares. Blaine is with him, which is enough; so is Puck, who demonstratively starts making out with a girl also with them every time Kurt as much as glances in his general direction. It's highly awkward, and Kurt just hopes he will have more important things to do once they're actually on their way.

On the morning of their departure, they are given protective eye wear that has been assembled from god knows where. Glasses tinted in any color imaginable that make the world look pink or green, things fit with elastic bands that are so snug it hurts, but that will probably be most effective against the sand that will blow into their faces. A pair of colorless glasses that make Kurt's vision blurry and that they pass around until the girl Puck has been making out with triumphantly declares to be able to see through them.

Then, just like that, they are leaving. They aren't giving an official goodbye or anything; despite the search for volunteers, Administration has managed to keep the whole thing more or less secret. No sense in getting people's hopes up, they said, when it all might come to nothing. Kurt isn't sure he agrees. Hopes may be disappointed, that's true, but the nearly complete hopelessness that has the city in its grasp now can't be better.

Someone from Administration opens a tiny gate in the North wall, and out they go. Without the protection the wall offers, the wind nearly knocks them off their feet, and quickly they draw shawls and scarves over their mouths and noses. They stagger forward, and as they get used to it, walking against the wind becomes easier. Kurt feels small, vulnerable; without realizing, he has grown accustomed to the confined spaces of the city. Even high up on the wall, the city's always there, threatening him with imprisonment and reassuring him with protection. Now, without the city, without the wall, he feels strangely exposed. And so small against the world he can almost see.

They walk, almost blindly, for a mile or so, every now and then stumbling over something. No one looks closer; all of them are aware that they will probably find decayed, half-eaten corpses at some point, but none of them is eager to start early.

Then, the wind dies down. It doesn't stop completely, and there is still enough sand in the air that they keep their goggles and their scarves, but they can see – for the first time, they can actually see where they are going.

It isn't pretty. As a matter of fact, it is complete devastation. They are standing in what must have been a village once, but not much of it remains.

Their mission leader rallies them, reminds them that their first priority is to find anything eatable, and then divides them into pairs. Kurt quickly slips to Blaine's side and is relieved when they are, indeed, paired together. He has no wish to do this with anyone else.

It turns out that he's not as cynical and realistic as he thought. Despite his assurances of the opposite to Blaine, he has imagined this trip as more of an adventure instead of the hard, disgusting and often simply sad work it is.

The village is close to the city. People haven't had far to run, most have probably made it, and yet, they find the remains of people killed by fallen beams or buried in their own homes when the roof broke down. They clear away stones and wood, occasionally calling others for help with something they alone can't lift. They drag corpses to what must have been the town square, where they will be burned. Blaine single-handedly digs out the broken body of a little girl and reverently carries her to the pyre, biting back tears the whole time. Kurt stands at his side, not knowing how to help. He doesn't understand how Blaine still isn't numb to all of this, how he still feels so much, but then he wouldn't want him to change.

They find some food. Not a lot; it's been so long that most of it has gone bad. But they're not picky, so they just shake most of the bugs out of the grain they find and take it anyway. Some potatoes, a little smoked meat and fish. They bag everything to take it back to the city.

At the end of the day, sweaty and tired, they gather in the square and watch the bodies burn. Kurt hesitantly puts an arm around Blaine's shoulders when he starts sniffling and is pathetically grateful when he doesn't pull away, but lays his head on his shoulder and seems to find comfort in it.

Their mission leader sends them off to sleep.

"Back tomorrow," she says, and Kurt is sure he has misunderstood.

"Aren't we going to explore? Or even clear up more? Maybe when the wind dies down more we could expand, send people out to live here, maybe plant things, so we wouldn't be so crowded and could actually grow some food?"

"No," she says matter-of-factly. "We're just here to find food. Orders from Administration. First and only priority."

"But -" Kurt follows her until she rolls out her blanket and settles down on it, arguing the whole time. She mostly ignores him, only occasionally offering a short "no". It is soon obvious she won't budge, doesn't even see anything wrong with her orders. Kurt only leaves her alone when she finally feigns sleep.

On the way back the next morning, he walks next to her, arguing the whole time. He is aware he is annoying her, and Blaine tries from time to time to get him to drop the subject, but Kurt is adamant. He can't believe they've only ventured outside for a few bags of potatoes when to him, everything is full of potential. And god knows the situation in the city needs relieving, badly. But apparently, Administration sees nothing wrong with the status quo.

When they arrive at the city, they are greeted by a small delegation who collect the food for redistribution.

Their mission leader is talking to one of them. She nods in Kurt's direction, then indicates him more openly, until the other person nods.


	5. Chapter 5

**Thanks as always to my awesome beta, voyageasia!**

**Warnings for violence.**

In hindsight, he should have seen it coming. But then, how could he?

One day a few weeks after their excursion, when he comes back from the wall at early morning, his usually still-asleep roommates greet him with the news that someone has been looking for him. It's nothing he concerns himself with – though by no means common, it's not that unusual for clients to come calling at his place. He chuckles, thinking that someone must be quite desperate to come calling this early, and then he thinks no more about it.

Business is better now, as well as life in general. The food they brought, a potato crop, fewer people due to the very young and the very old dying, and apparently some innovations made by Administration have improved the situation in the city. Not directly threatened by death anymore, people have begun to care more about the pleasantries of life, and sometimes have the means to pay for them. Kurt is happy to oblige.

People now also have time for other, weirder occupations. He walks through the city with Blaine, and they pass three preachers of doom who describe various ways of how the world will soon come to its final end and what to do to prevent it. Each of them has gathered a small crowd of listeners, and Kurt is worried until he realizes that most people make fun of them.

"...and then he became he-who-walks-the-sky, eternally chased by his father the darkness to remind us that where there is light, darkness must soon follow...," one preacher intones, and Kurt shakes his head.

"One should think the most recent apocalypse was enough without them predicting the next one," he says, and Blaine smiles.

"Maybe he thought it unsatisfactory. I mean, there are people left," Blaine says, and Kurt looks at him with one eyebrow raised.

"That almost sounded like you were making fun of him."

Blaine shrugs. "I'm worried, though. My aunt once told me that after the last apocalypse, people became awfully homophobic for a time because they thought we should all make babies to "fill the earth", whatever that's supposed to mean. I hope that's not going to happen this time."

"Well, look around. There's no room to swing a cat in here, least of all to 'fill the earth'. Earth is pretty filled as far as I'm concerned. We just don't have neither the room nor the resources for a lot of babies." He hesitates, knowing what he's about to say will annoy Blaine, but then can't help himself.

"We could have, though. If we'd just go out again, explore not just for food, but for arable land, areas that are protected from the wind, we could -"

"Leave it, Kurt."

He leaves it. It's an old argument by now, Kurt pushing for more, for opportunities to get out, Blaine content to believe that Administration knows best. Blaine is starting to get increasingly annoyed by Kurt's persistence, and Kurt_ hates _Blaine's insistence that everything will be fine.

Especially as he knows that deep inside, Blaine feels the same way he does.

A few nights after they came back, as the starvation was still mostly unrelieved and an old woman was killed in a fight over food, Blaine had come to him, and Kurt had kicked out his roommates and he and Blaine had sat on the floor, leaning against his cot. It had been a situation that would have merited a bottle of something strong to pass between them, but Administration has banned alcohol. In general, Kurt actually approves, but they could have really used getting drunk then. Blaine had cried, silent, heaving sobs that spoke of his despair at the situation in his city coming to this, and his guilt in not being able to save her. And then he had talked. And now Kurt knows Blaine had wanted to go further, had even formally requested another outing. Like Kurt, he believes that in the long run, leaving the city and looking for areas that might be habitable again is the only thing that can save them, and like Kurt, he is desperately afraid that no one else sees that. That people are so caught up in the comparative security of the city that they can't see that in a few years at the latest, it will be a death trap.

Unlike Kurt, he believes that Administration has a plan and that with a little time, they will fix everything.

Kurt knows it's cruel to take this belief from Blaine. And yet, from time to time, he tries.

He will admit that Administration does some things right. Food distribution, if there is food, works pretty well. There are fixed quantities for men, women and children, and no one gets more or less no matter who they are. Even Administration members themselves got thin and weak during the famine, so Kurt can't accuse them of cheating. Constantly, they work on new ways to grow food in the limited space they have, and to improve housing so people don't have to step on one another.

The one thing they won't do is start exploring outside the city, and Kurt wants to know why.

They find him a few days later, in the early morning after he has just returned from the wall. It frustrates him endlessly that every day, he can now clearly see the ground on the North side. He hears birds sing from time to time, and he imagines trees growing, a few animals that have survived cautiously coming out of their shelters. And yet here, they do nothing.

He sits on his bed contemplating a few more hours of sleep when they come in without knocking, three men in streetsweeper uniform who step too close and crowd over him, and suddenly, he is terribly afraid. He stands up, smiling invitingly.

"What can I do for you, gentlemen?" he asks, though in his belly, he knows they're not here for his services.

Two of them take his arms, and instinctively, he fights, manages to get one arm free before they grab it again and bury their fingers in it in a silent, but effective reprimand. He has no idea what to do, but he sees Santana with her hands on her mouth in shock, and mouthes, "Get Blaine," before they drag him away.

He is so scared. He doesn't know what they're going to do to him, but he knows it can't be good. He doesn't resist; he's strong, but not so strong he can best three men. They drag him into an alley. He has served many a client here; now he wonders if this is where they'll find his body.

"Consider this a warning," one of the men says before he slams his fist into Kurt's face.

He is pushed to the ground, and the metallic taste of his own blood fills his mouth as his face is smashed into the pavement. They start kicking him, all three of them, and he coils together, trying to protect his head and his kidneys and his groin, and just lets it happen. There's nothing he can do to stop them; they beat him up matter-of-factly, without spite or glee, but also without qualms or pity.

He is half unconscious when they finally leave him, bleeding from cuts in his face and on his hands, every breath a stab of pain.

Faintly, he hears his name called. He doesn't have the strength to cry out; they have to find him without his guidance, or not. He's not sure if he cares.

They do find him, though, and somehow they get him home. He passes out on the way.

When he wakes, it's to Rachel crying, Santana randomly punching the wall in helpless rage, and Blaine kneeling on the floor before his cot, holding his hand.

"What happened?" Blaine asks, and his voice sounds weird, like he's holding back tears.

Kurt opens one eye; the other one's swollen shut. He wants to say, "What does it look like?", but he's too tired, so he just shrugs and winces at the pain the motion causes.

"Who -" Blaine clears his throat, starts again. "Who would do something like that? And why? Do you know?"

He almost tells him. Streetsweepers. It's just one word; surely he could manage that. But then Blaine rests his forehead on their joined hands, and Kurt feels the wetness on his cheeks, feels the salt sting in his cuts, and he doesn't. He doesn't tell him he knows who, and has a pretty good idea why; he can't do this to Blaine. Can't destroy his belief in the system, the new order they all live in, and tell him that everything is fake; that like every corrupt government he's ever heard of, Administration has a way to deal with people they consider dangerous.

He catches Santana's eye and ignores her disbelieving stare as he very cautiously and very slowly shakes his head.

Recovering takes time, and he hates it. At first he can't walk without help, so he can't go up the wall. He can barely show his face outside. He's stared at, his face is a mess of multicolored bruises, and it can't be good for business to be seen like this. Even if he had wanted or been able to— no one wants to be blown by someone who looks like he might lose a tooth doing it.

Blaine comes by as often as his duties allow, and he sees a lot more of his roommates. He's not sure it's a good thing, though they are useful for getting him things or helping him stand up, but their nearness and their loudness is grating. Santana tries to talk to him about keeping his attackers' identity secret, but he doesn't want to talk about it. He doesn't want to talk about a lot of things, and his still aching face is as good an excuse as any. He is silent and just enjoys their attentions as long as he can. Even Puck comes by once, though he makes sure they're not alone, and he doesn't stay long.

Otherwise, boredom might actually kill him. But what bugs him the most is that he can't go investigate. Administration is sorely mistaken if they think he can be beaten down so easily (even though it's really not "easy"; he hurts, he's not completely sure everything is right inside him, and he's still in shock that somebody would do that to him). But now, he is more determined than ever to find out what they are hiding. And that they are hiding something seems obvious; why else would they think it necessary to "warn" Kurt like that when all he has done is ask some questions?

He can wait, he tells himself. Not that he has a choice. But he doubts that whatever Administration has planned will take place in the next few weeks. So he lies, and rests, and recovers. And he listens, and watches, and thinks.


	6. Chapter 6

**Many thanks as always to voyageasia for betaing!**

Before Kurt even _meets _Brittany, he already hates her. Or, well – he doesn't _hate _her. Strong emotions like that are tiring, and he saves the effort for people who have actually earned it, like the thugs who beat him up or, increasingly, Administration in general.

Brittany is too harmless for hate. But the first impression he gets of her doesn't do anything to get her into his good graces, either.

The whole night, she spends in Santana's bed, and he doesn't think they sleep for more than an hour at a time. There's no way to block out the sounds they make, the moans, the words, the giggles, or these weird _wet_ noises when they do things he really doesn't want to know about.

He can't sleep, he hasn't had a chance, and he's hurting, and he's cranky enough as it is. He's had enough.

"Stop... whatever you're doing. I'm recuperating. I need to sleep."

He doesn't know what he expected.

"You're annoying, and you need to shut up," is the only answer he gets, and then the giggling and the moaning pick up again.

So no, he doesn't like Brittany. She doesn't makes things better when she beams at him in the morning, looking like she's had eight hours of undisturbed rest, while he's more than aware of the bags under his eyes and the impressions the wrinkles in his pillow have made on his cheek.

She calls him sweetie. He may hate her, after all.

Then Santana rises, looking like she might start to purr at any moment, and presses some food stamps into Brittany's hand.

Huh. Still, at least he has the decency to not take his clients home with him.

He also wouldn't visit a client at his place. He knows basic safety, and that's just stupid.

Brittany, however, seems unaware of the danger she might have put herself into if they had been a different set of people than they are. She kisses Santana on the lips, Kurt and Rachel on the cheek, and then leaves, waving.

And she keeps coming back. At least once a week, she spends the night with Santana. Kurt has no idea how she manages to pay her. Probably by threatening old ladies with the razor blades she claims to have hidden in her hair, he thinks, though unsurprisingly, she has never offered one of them when his own got so blunt that his shave turned into a bloodbath.

But...he thinks they are a little more quiet the next time, and Santana's good mood lasts at least three days after a night with Brittany, which makes his days at home much more agreeable.

So it's probably worth it.

After a few weeks, he thinks Brittany might just be one of the few people whose presence he can stand. Besides, she has the best gossip.

He's getting better. Much too slowly, for his taste, and unfortunately he's still not good enough for going on the wall, but at least he can go outside with someone without attracting unwelcome attention. His face is almost back to normal. Breathing still hurts sometimes, and his leg tends to give out when he overexerts himself, but hey. Be thankful for small mercies.

Blaine is still keeping him company whenever his duties allow, and Kurt is increasingly grateful for it. He's aware he isn't an easy patient; he's getting more and more cranky from the still-constant pain, the enforced company of his roommates, and his inability to go up the wall. Blaine is good for him. He bears Kurt's bad mood with humor, makes him laugh, and when Kurt gets too snappy, he calls him out on it or just leaves for the moment without bearing a grudge.

For the moment, they carefully keep from discussing Administration or the situation in the city. Every now and then, Blaine looks at him as though he wants to ask a question, but then thinks better of it, and although Kurt certainly notices, he doesn't inquire. He's all too aware that they may be entering dangerous terrain, and he prefers not to go there.

He just doesn't like lying to Blaine. And the secrets he keeps from him make quite a pile now, and he knows that every question Blaine asks that goes into that direction may either add to the pile or destroy it altogether, and Kurt doesn't like either option very much.

Then, one evening when it's dark and quiet and everyone's gone, he and Blaine are sitting on Kurt's bed. The atmosphere's weird, seems to invite deep conversations, and finally, Blaine asks,

"Why do you think they did it," gesturing at the bandage around Kurt's ribs he's been changing. "Beat you up?"

Kurt has been a little worried for a while now, so now that the moment has come, he's actually kind of relieved. He has prepared the lie to tell a long time ago.

"When you're doing what I do, sometimes you just piss people off. Could have been jealous husbands or boyfriends, that's not so uncommon. At home, I once got kicked in the groin by a girl because she found out her boyfriend had been visiting me."

The last part's true; ironically, the girl became one of his best friends later. She's dead now, like they all are, and the sudden grief he feels makes a travesty out of Kurt's try to play it for laughs.

Blaine probably wouldn't have bought it anyway.

"So why do you do it?" he asks, and Kurt sighs. He's glad they're away from the original question, but this isn't much better. They've never really talked about it, but he knows Blaine has his issues with him being a whore, and that makes it difficult for Kurt to talk about it. Blaine is his dearest friend, and he doesn't want to make him uncomfortable, but he refuses to be ashamed. There's absolutely nothing wrong with what he does, and he won't let someone make him feel like there is.

"Necessity plus stubborn defiance, I guess. When my parents died, I saw no other way. I had always been the weird kid, I don't think anyone would have...taken me in or something, and I didn't want to be dependent on charity. "

Blaine listens, and something makes Kurt keep talking.

"I used to sing, you know. And they were happy enough to let me do it when there was a wedding or something, but no one seemed to understand why I was doing it. Why I was thinking I just wasn't born for that fishing village, but for... not necessarily better, but certainly different things. I probably was much too vocal about it, and I guess I was getting on their nerves pretty badly after some time.

And when I started...whoring, it seemed to me like I was showing them all—Look, I _am _doing something different. Certainly not what I imagined, but that didn't seem to matter that much, you know? And it just felt pretty good when...a few of the worst of them that had tormented me a lot, became my best clients, and it just felt so good to hear them moaning my name, to have just that tiny amount of power over them."

He shrugs, a little embarrassed. They are all dead, too, so it shouldn't matter so much anymore, but somehow, it does.

"But why now? Why do you keep doing it?" Blaine asks, and it doesn't sound judgmental, but like he is really trying to understand.

Kurt hesitates. It's something he has been thinking about himself, why he still does it. They're not letting people starve here, if they can help it, and it's not like there's a lot of other things to be had here. He doesn't_ have_ to do it, but -

"It's somehow become my place here. I think everyone needs a place, a sense of belonging, and this...I'm not saying it's a good place. It's cold, it's often lonely, sometimes dangerous, and a lot of people think I'm trash, but it's the only place I have."

He stops, looking at the floor between his feet, and waits for Blaine to say something. He doesn't know what, exactly – what is there to say? But when Blaine finally does talk, it's something he doesn't expect at all:

"I'd love to hear you sing some time."

He starts walking around more, leaning on Blaine's or sometimes Rachel's arm for support at first, later only having them by his side just in case. Then he goes out alone, walking the city in a kind of silent defiance that calls out to his attackers: "Look, I'm still here, you didn't beat me down."

Still, the preachers of doom are standing at every corner, and they seem to be gaining a bigger audience these days. But Kurt doesn't listen; he's too caught up in his own thoughts: what is Administration hiding, what were they 'warning' him about, why were they trying to silence him when he wasn't even _doing_ anything?

Then comes the day he ventures on the wall for the first time. It's hard; he has to rest twice on the stairs, and he can't stay up long because it's too tiring to stand without anything to hold on to. But he makes it, and he has a smile on his face for the rest of the day.

After that, he tries every day when the weather's not too bad. It's getting warmer, but it rains a lot, and he won't take the risk of slipping on the wet stones of the wall.

It gets easier each time he tries, and he actually has the feeling that being on the wall helps him get better.

On one of the days he can't go up the wall, when the rain lets up a bit in the afternoon, he walks through the city on his own, and in the audience of one of the preachers of doom, he sees Brittany, her face pale and frightened.

His first impulse is to just walk by, let her deal with whatever it is alone, but at the same time she sees him, he is scolding himself: She's your friend now, go talk to her. And then it's too late anyway, as she comes over to him and hugs him tightly, more tightly than he thinks their level of intimacy allows. But then, he's heard her having sex countless times, so perhaps there's not a lot of personal boundaries left between them.

"What's the matter, Brit?" he asks, gently peeling her arms off him and taking a step back so he can look in her eyes.

"I think we're all going to die," she says, her voice monotone and like she has already resigned to the inevitable, but with genuine fear in her eyes. "There's...radiation now, they say. Outside, behind the wall. Killing everything."

Kurt has just about had enough of these preachers of doom. People are frightened enough without them scaring at least those gullible enough to believe them even more.

"Britt, you can't believe what any of those people say. Really, you just can't take them seriously. They just want to scare you."

"But all of them say it. There are posters, too. Like, official ones."

She leads him to one of them, pinned to the wall of a wooden building and partially soaked by rain. But he can read it well enough: It quite matter-of-factly warns that it has been discovered that there is deadly radiation beyond the wall, that anyone who ventures up or outside the wall will probably be killed within hours and that only inside the city people are safe.

He wants to say, I've been on the wall yesterday, and I'm still alive, aren't I?

But he can't, he can't tell her that, so he tells her to just stay within the walls then and everything will be fine. She looks slightly calmer, but he hates himself for not telling her the truth. That there isn't any radiation, that there can't be, and that if there were, a wall would be no help against it.

The wall is nine feet high at most, and he doesn't have any illusions as to how well it is built. It is true, it has withstood the occasional wave or bout of wind, but what would it have to offer against radiation?

He walks home, silently fuming. It's a scam, he's sure of it; if there was lethal radiation, they'd all be dead by now. The only question is, why would Administration make up something like that? Now that he has his eyes open, he sees signs that worry him, of people actually believing: the preachers' audiences don't laugh anymore, but listen with morbid fascination as they describe what radiation does to your body. No one knows what radiation actually is, so every preacher tells a different tale, but as they all tell it with absolute conviction, it doesn't matter much.

Kurt doesn't know either, but he does know that there is none. He is the living proof.

Without him noticing it, his feet carry him to Blaine. He doesn't know what he is looking for – confirmation, someone to vent, someone to pick a fight with? Someone who will listen to him, someone who cares.

"Blaine, why are they telling lies to scare people into staying inside the city?" he asks without preamble, and winces because it sounds like an accusation.

Blaine seems to know exactly what he is talking about. He looks uncomfortable, but looks into Kurt's eyes as he says,

"You don't know it's lies."

"Oh yes, I do."

Kurt takes his hand and drags him with him even though he knows he's technically on duty; he is past the point of caring about that.

It's not far to the wall. It seems it never is; even though the city is a lot bigger than everything Kurt had seen before, it feels claustrophobic. He holds Blaine's hand the whole way, and after a bit of protest, Blaine follows silently if not willingly.

At one of the stairways that lead on top of the wall he stops. They can't go up, there are streetsweepers around, and even if there weren't, his leg is screaming in protest of the fast pace he's set walking here.

He looks around, and then points up the stairs.

"I go up there," he whispers fiercely. "Nearly every day, ever since it's been prohibited, excepting only when I couldn't walk. I was on top of the wall yesterday, Blaine. I'm not dead, am I? So why are they telling lies?"

Blaine looks at him, stunned and, Kurt thinks, angry. After a long while, he talks.

"Because it keeps us safe," he says, his voice barely able to contain his anger. "It doesn't matter if it's true or not, because it keeps us safe. The _rules _keep us safe, Kurt. Have you already forgotten how it was during the famine, when everything was chaos and everyone fought? How hard it was to restore order? We need order, Kurt. Order saved our lives, and order will keep us safe. Who are you to put yourself above that order?"

His voice has gotten louder; now, he's nearly yelling. But as Kurt starts to speak, Blaine shakes his head. He looks at him, more sad now than angry, and speaks, so quietly Kurt can barely hear him.

"Everybody has to keep the rules, Kurt. Even you."

Then he walks away, leaving Kurt standing there, stunned.


	7. Chapter 7

**As always, thanks to voyageasia for betaing.**

**Warning for attempted rape.**

Blaine doesn't come back, and Kurt...hates it. He hadn't realized he'd grown so dependent on Blaine's friendship, but now that it's missing, he feels bereft.

And he doesn't really understand why Blaine reacted this way. Was what he had done really so bad? Sure, it was against the law, but by now, he's completely sure that this law is not there to protect them, but to keep people from growing curious as to what the world outside the city looks like. And he doesn't think he really demands special treatment like Blaine accused him of. He'd never even thought of getting more food than his share, and he never complained about his living situation. The wall was the only thing he's ever broken the rules for. Well, and satisfying his clients in back alleys, but it's not like there's even an official rule against that. As far as he knows, at least. It was just Blaine who...

Blaine. It's weird how he can't stop thinking about him. How quickly he has come to rely on his constant, cheerful companionship.

He surprises himself with the thought that he really wants to go to Blaine and apologize. Anything to get that back, that feeling of...of almost belonging. But he doesn't quite know what to apologize for, as he really doesn't feel guilty for the things Blaine accused him of.

But then, after a long time of agonized thinking, he realizes that he's guilty of destroying Blaine's world.

And there isn't an apology for that.

When he's not thinking about Blaine, he's thinking about the lie. He doesn't understand, can't understand why someone would spread a tale like that.

Or, well. There's only one logical explanation – make people afraid of the world outside the wall. Nip every bit of curiosity, of the urge to explore, in the bud.

What he doesn't understand is why they would want to do that.

After a few days of his thoughts turning from Blaine to Administration, from Administration to Blaine, he thinks he's going mad.

He has to do something, and he can't figure out a way to make up with Blaine. Blaine has taken to smiling at him when he sees him, politely and a little forced. Which is somehow worse than being ignored altogether, for since they had known each other, Blaine's smile has been a lot of things, but never polite. It has never been anything less than 'glad to see you'.

So he talks to people. First those he knows – he starts with Puck, because he already knows he's been going up the wall. Puck says he's already wondered why Kurt isn't dead, and that he'll have to think about what that will mean to him. Santana, Rachel, Brittany, Millie. He has to actually go on the wall one morning while Santana watches before she believes him. Brittany cries, just happy that they're safe. No one's reaction is in any way satisfying to Kurt, though he doesn't know what he's expected. But they just don't seem to realize how outrageous this is. Even Blaine's reaction is better, somehow – at least it means he knows the implications.

Still, he starts talking to strangers. He doesn't stand somewhere in a corner and preaches, and he doesn't make his own posters, but whenever he hears someone talk about the "radiation", he tells them it's a lie. Most don't believe him.

He refuses to be afraid. Sometimes he remembers strangers' feet in his ribs and the pavement blurring before his swollen eyes, but he doesn't let himself dwell on it. He'll be damned if he lets that stop him.

Still, he can't help tensing up whenever the door to his hut opens, or when he gets the impression someone is following him. He almost expects an attack, and it takes weeks for him to realize it doesn't come.

That doesn't mean his actions go unnoticed, or don't have consequences. Problems start relatively early, and he's really glad he is friends with Millie when suddenly all of his food stamps are invalid.

She manages to clandestinely feed him after dark, but still, he goes with considerably less than before.

He is hungry, but somehow he doesn't care. He is determined, talking to everyone who will listen to him, revealing that he has been going on top of the wall and in spite of all the rumored radiation is still alive.

He doesn't know what he wants to achieve. He has known the truth for some time, but he hasn't really taken action against Administration, nor does he have an exact idea about what to do.

Suddenly, he finds himself alone in his cabin. Santana and Rachel leave hidden notes that he finds days after, telling him it has been strongly suggested they move out. They love him, they'll try to visit. He actually cries that day. As much as they annoyed him sometimes, they have found an uneasy friendship, and he has come to rely a lot on them for company, especially since Blaine stopped coming. He realizes that Administration doesn't need to beat him up in order to hit him hard.

Customers stay away. He doesn't know how, or when, but Administration must be telling tales about him, or else threatening consequences for acquiring his services. He doesn't think he cares, until one day someone he meets on the street wants to go home with him and he finds himself feeling pathetically grateful. Which makes him realize how completely desperate for human contact he is.

So desperate, in fact, that he has the guy half naked on his bed before he realizes he doesn't do this. He never takes clients home. His bed has only ever been used to sleep and for sitting on while talking with Blaine late at night.

The thought is enough to make him falter in his efforts, enough to make him forget that short, fleeting feeling of almost-passion he's experienced. The guy he's working on sits up, looking confused, but then grins.

"Not doing it for you, is it?" he asks, and Kurt nearly groans. What does the guy expect? Kurt's a whore, he's here to deliver pleasure, not to experience it. And anyway, is he really so conceited he believes giving him a blowjob should give Kurt an orgasm?

Then he freezes, because the guy says, "You should let me fuck you."

Kurt doesn't get fucked. He's tried it once or twice, in his old village, but he really, really doesn't like it. He hates the feeling of vulnerability it gives him, plus clients just never take the time to properly prepare him, and while he's invested some of the food stamps he's earned in oil that could be used as lubrication, he isn't about to waste them on a random guy that now, as he looks closer, somehow creeps him out.

Suddenly, all he wants is to get that man out of his bed, out of his house as soon as possible.

So, "No!" he blurts out, then catches himself and tries a suggestive smile. "You can fuck anyone you like, but you could get the blowjob of a lifetime here."

"I'd rather fuck," the guy says, already getting up from the bed and fumbling at his pants to pull them further down.

Kurt rises quickly.

"I'm sorry, that's not part of my services."

He expects the guy to get dressed and leave, but instead he just smiles, comes up to him and grabs his arm. "It will be."

Out of nowhere, Kurt is so scared it completely paralyzes him. He wants to say something, but his mouth is suddenly too dry. He swallows and tries again.

"You – you should go now."

The man just grins and pushes him face down on the bed, pressing one knee into Kurt's back and holding his head down with one hand while the other tries to shove down Kurt's pants.

Kurt struggles fruitlessly, a thousand thoughts at once flying through his head.

_He's raping me, _is the first and foremost, and the second, surprisingly clear and completely convinced, _That's their doing._

His thin pillow threatens to suffocate him, and he struggles wildly, to free his head and be able to breathe if nothing else. His attacker is a lot stronger than him, but he seems to not actually want to kill him, as he takes his hand away from Kurt's head to allow him to turn it to the side. Unfortunately, it also means that he now has both hands free to work on his pants, and his knee in Kurt's back still doesn't allow Kurt a lot of movement.

He can scream, though.

He calls for help as loudly as he can, and he continues to struggle, kicking but only managing to turn over a stool standing by the bed. A big hand presses on his mouth, and as he again fights for breath, he thinks, _This could break me. __T__hey could break me with this._

Then another thought enters his head as he pictures his attacker, one knee on his back, a hand on his mouth, the other now pulling down Kurt's pants, and he slowly and clandestinely sneaks a hand back, feeling around until he touches the man's half-hard cock. When the man grunts in surprise, he quickly grabs his balls and squeezes once, hard and then even harder, and the man whimpers and then screams, and slumps down on Kurt.

Kurt grimaces and wriggles free, and as soon as he can, he shoves the still whimpering man down on the floor, scrambles up and fastens his pants. Then he grabs his knife and kicks the man in the ribs.

"Up," he commands, but the man just curls his body to protect the parts that feel, Kurt is sure, as if they are crushed.

"Can't," the guy moans, but then slowly, slowly picks himself up. He looks at Kurt with fear in his eyes. Kurt grips the knife harder and impatiently motions to the door; he just wants the guy gone so he can finally break down.

The door opens so fast it bangs against the wall. Blaine enters, looking wild, his gun ready. He looks confused when he sees Kurt standing above a man who still crouches on the floor, a hand curled protectively around his genitals.

"I thought I heard you cry for help?" Blaine says, and Kurt nods, stunned and, despite everything, weirdly happy to see Blaine so ready to defend him.

"I did," he says, "but I think I've got it now. Thanks, though."

The man looks up, and his eyes widen as he takes in Blaine's streetsweeper uniform and the gun that is pointed at him. He stands up and pulls up his pants.

"You guys paid me to do this shit, and now you storm in here to save him? Make up your fucking mind!"

Then he leaves, and Blaine stands there, his shoulders slumped, looking utterly defeated.

"The...the other guys tried to stop me from coming here, that's why it took so long. I guess I know now why."

He nods slowly, then turns to leave.

"Blaine!" Kurt calls. He just can't let him leave like this, not again. Blaine stops and looks at him, but suddenly Kurt doesn't know what to say.

"Blaine, I...thanks."

It's not what he wants to say, but he can't get the words out. Blaine nods once and then goes, closing the door behind him.

Kurt falls down on his bed sobbing, for more reasons than one.

He stays in bed the next day, mostly just staring at the ceiling and thinking. Is that it? Have they broken him down? Will he stop with...whatever he is doing? He can't make up his mind, his mood changing from utterly dejected to determined every moment.

This night, Santana and Rachel visit. Nobody says anything, but it's clear Blaine arranged it. Still, they don't dare stay long, but they tell him where they sleep now...on pallets on the floor along with many others in a long hall in the big house on the outskirts of the city, a weird blue building with remains of yellow letters that is used partly for housing and partly for experiments on growing crops with artificial light and watering.

"I should start talking shit, too," Santana says as she looks around the house that he now has all to himself.

Kurt shakes his head and tells them what happened, and he and Rachel cry together while Santana holds them, whispering wild threats against his attacker and Administration that are oddly soothing.

The next day, because that's what he does, Kurt picks himself up again. He has made up his mind; he refuses to be beaten down. He has been beaten up, isolated, nearly raped. He has lost Blaine. What is there left for them to do to him? They can kill him, right, but hey, there's been an apocalypse. He's living on borrowed time anyway, isn't he?

So now, he does preach. He stands in a corner and lets people gather, then starts talking. He doesn't preach doom, but moving forward, fighting, if necessary. He tells people that there is no radiation, that the outside isn't deadly, that Administration has made everything up. And slowly, people start to believe him. They talk of going and demanding proof or an explanation, of finding out what they are hiding. They are angry.

And wherever Kurt goes, there is Blaine, still not talking to him but neglecting his duties to keep an eye on him, his gun ready.

Blaine looks broken, Kurt thinks. Once, he looks over and smiles, a smile so sad and small it hurts.

Still, it is better than nothing. Kurt smiles back and goes to bed with more hope than he's had in a long time.

He is woken by a hand on his mouth. He is instantly completely awake and instinctively starts to struggle against the strong arms holding him, until his eyes grow accustomed to the dark and he recognizes Blaine. He stops struggling, and Blaine takes his hand away but keeps holding him, pressing against him as if he's gathering strength. Then he takes a deep, shuddering breath and looks at Kurt.

"They sent me to kill you."


	8. Chapter 8

**To the guest who, the chapter before last, asked when we'd get to the part mentioned in the summary: Mea culpa. I know this story has gotten away from me, as my stories tend to do. But we're getting there.**

**As always, thanks to voyageasia, who had a lot to do betaing this chapter.**

Kurt nods, unsurprised. The only unexpected thing about all of this is that they sent Blaine, of all people.

He frees himself from Blaine's arms.

"Are you going to do it?" he asks.

Blaine flinches, but Kurt doesn't take back the question. A part of him says that Blaine would never kill him, but the rest isn't that sure. The world has gone mad, and most people aren't that different. Who knows what a person will do in any given situation? He'd never have thought his best friend might kill him, but then he'd never have thought he'd become persona non grata and dangerous dissident just by asking a few questions.

"Do you really think I'd kill you?" Blaine asks, sounding hurt.

Kurt shrugs."I don't know. I'm not saying it would be easy for you, but – if they told you to, and you believed in them, and you thought people would benefit from it, then yes, I think you might."

Blaine nods thoughtfully, and Kurt questions the wisdom behind pretty much giving Blaine reasons to kill him.

"Maybe you're right," Blaine says. "I might – if I believed in them." He shakes his head sadly. "I don't, not anymore. I don't think a government that resorts to having someone raped, beaten up or killed just to shut them up is a government that deserves my loyalty. And yes, I know about the beating." he adds just as Kurt wants to ask, "I think I always have. I just didn't want to believe it."

"So you're not going to kill me," Kurt says just to make sure. And as Blaine shakes his head with a half-smile, he asks, "So what do we do now?"

"We'll have to leave."

"Leave? Blaine, we can't just leave. There's _nothing _out there, there's – who knows what there is? We can't just leave."

Blaine sighs, shaking his head. "Sometimes I think you don't even hear yourself talking. For months, you've been bugging everyone to go out there and explore. Now it's your chance. More than that, you don't have a choice. Or do you imagine us creeping around the city, in hiding until they change your mind or the day those preachers talk about, when the world is finally finished for good?"

Kurt can see that's not really an option, but it's..."It's scary," he admits. "Also, it's really sudden."

"I know." Blaine hugs him, and in spite of everything, Kurt is so happy to have that back.

"Now, we have to hurry. Pack your things, I'm going to round up everyone to say goodbye."

With that, he leaves, and it's only then that Kurt sees the two backpacks lying beside the door. Curious, he looks inside. This must be Blaine's, there's some clothes, a few tools, and the rest is filled with food. The other one must be intended for him – it's mostly full with food, though there's room left for clothes and anything else he might want to bring.

It's too much food to have come from food stamps. He must have stolen it. And Blaine stealing food? Kurt would say it's the end of the world if that hadn't happened already.

And then it hits him: this is his fault. Blaine going against his principles, Blaine having to leave the city, Blaine losing, once again, everything.

Kurt feels like crying, but there's no time, it's too late to change anything now. His remorse doesn't quite go far enough to persuade Blaine to kill him; he doesn't think he'd succeed, anyway.

But later, he swears to himself, later he'll find a way to make it up to Blaine, in any way he can.

For now, he packs.

It doesn't take long. His clothes, his blanket, needles and threat, the salt and oil he got from the extra food stamps he earned. He decides to steal his pillow, and fastens it on top of his backpack with some rope that he's sure they'll have some use for. A lantern.

Then he waits, pacing anxiously in the confined space of his cabin. He fears Administration may realize their mistake and send someone else to finish what Blaine should have done. He fears something might delay Blaine or stop him completely. He fears Blaine might change his mind.

When the door opens, he jumps. and his racing heart hardly slows down when he realizes it's Blaine, with Rachel, Santana and Brittany in tow. He breathes deeply and goes to hug them goodbye.

"We can't stay long," Rachel says with tears in her eyes. "Where we sleep, they'll notice we're gone. Just, please, be careful. I'll miss you."

"Come with us," Kurt says, surprising himself. But he means it. There's no reason they couldn't leave, too, if they wanted to, and he finds he'd like them to be there.

But at the same moment, he knows they won't. He knows Brittany won't leave, she was born in the area and is one of very few people who haven't lost someone in the apocalypse. And Santana has her arm around Brittany's waist and looks at her like she hung the moon. _What are you doing, _he thinks, _Brittany's a whore, we don't fall in love with our clients. __She'll__ just break your heart._

And really, Santana says, "No, we're not leaving. Not yet, at least. We'll do something better, we'll continue what you started. We'll talk to people, make sure they know what's going on. We'll try to find out more, too."

"No, you can't!" Kurt says, frightened. "You know what they've done to me, they'll do it to you too, you can't!"

Brittany smiles at him. "There's more of us, so we're not that easy to target. Also, we're women. We'll be way more subtle."

"I'm sorry we didn't start earlier," Rachel says. "We could have helped you more, but...well, it was mostly me. I was too scared."

"Anyway, you two should get going," Santana says. "I want this house back. But if you can make it somehow, try to come back for us. Every month at full moon, we'll be waiting for you at the little gate on the North side of the wall."

_If you survive, _is what she doesn't say. But Kurt hears it anyway.

Dazed, he lets himself be hugged one more time, and then Blaine and he shoulder their backpacks and go out into the night.

…...

They go to the North side, of course; wherever they may end up, this is the best, the only, way to start. Kurt hasn't been on the wall lately, he hasn't dared, but as far as he knows, the water hasn't gone away, and neither has the ground stopped spitting lava on the other side. He doesn't know if there are still landslides, but he isn't willing to see for himself. If they want to have even the slightest chance of survival, they have to go North.

Shortly before the gate, Blaine stops him with a hand on his shoulder. "You don't happen to know how to drive a car, do you?"

Kurt shakes his head. Before he came here, he had seen a car exactly once, and he hadn't even dared touch it.

"I don't either. Besides, I don't think there's any fuel. So, walking it is."

Kurt stares at him. "You would have stolen a car?"

Blaine shrugs. "I've stolen food, I've kept my gun and stolen ammunition, I've stolen this."

He takes a small, shiny item out of his pocket, and it takes a moment for Kurt to see it's a key. It must be the key to the gate in the wall.

"So yes. I'd have stolen a car. It hardly seems to matter anymore."

He sounds...lost, somehow, and there are so many things Kurt wants to say. _But it does. It matters. Don't lose who you are because of me. I couldn't bear it._

He doesn't say it, though. He has the distinct feeling they should get the hell out of here, they've stalled long enough. So he just gives Blaine a quick hug, and then they walk to the gate, slowly so as not to arise the suspicion of any streetsweeper nearby, and in the shadow of the wall, Blaine quickly unlocks the little gate.

…...

And then they're outside. It's dark, much darker than in the city, and they grab each other's hand so as not to lose each other, and walk. Just away, as far as they can, the direction is not important now, Kurt knows they have miles to go before they either drown or – he doesn't even know, was it earth or lava on the other side? Everything seemed so laid out from the top of the wall, but now he's actually here, on the outside, it's so different. He hasn't even spent that long in the city, not quite a year, he thinks, and yet it has become literally his whole world. Now, everything seems unreal, and he clutches Blaine's hand, his only anchor, the only thing that keeps everything in perspective.

They don't talk much as they stumble through the dark. They don't dare light a lantern to illuminate their way, they're not far away enough. Fortunately, the moon is bright.

Once, Kurt asks, "Do you think they'll follow us?" He has to almost shout to be heard through the howling of the wind, but then, at the end of the sentence, the wind stops and his voice is so loud in the almost total silence that suddenly surrounds them that they both flinch. After that, they don't speak for a long time, and Blaine only remembers to answer much later, when he can whisper because the wind still hasn't picked up again.

"I don't know."

Much later, when the sun is already high over the horizon, they find a kind of depression between a couple of hills and settle down for a bit. It seems reckless, Kurt thinks, to interrupt their flight in broad daylight, but they've been walking for several hours now. Kurt has forgotten how his feet feel when they don't hurt, and Blaine has begun stumbling on every other step.

There's wind again, but it's not very strong, and here they are protected enough to be comfortable. They even dare to light a small fire, and the weak, but hot tea they treat themselves with tastes comforting. They eat and rest their weary feet, and then they lie down to sleep. But just as Kurt closes his eyes, Blaine starts talking.

"I actually don't think they'll come after us. I – I hope that us being gone is enough for them."

"Me being gone, you mean," Kurt says, turning to his belly and leaning on his elbows to look at Blaine. "I've been thinking, Blaine, there's no reason you have to go, too. I mean, I get that I'm kind of late realizing this, but maybe if you went back now, it wouldn't be too late."

"I'm not going back, Kurt," Blaine says, and as Kurt squints into the sunlight to see his face, he can see tears glistening there. Instinctively, he scoots closer.

"This is going to sound awful, but...I've felt really good since the apocalypse. For the first time in my life, I felt like I had a purpose, like I was really able to help people. I've always wanted that. And...I loved the way Administration worked. How they tried to relieve people, better their situation however they could. I thought they were...good. They made sure there was a kind of order in all the chaos surrounding us, and I loved that."

Blaine's crying now, and Kurt sits up and puts his arms around him, drawing him closer until he can rest his head against Kurt's chest.

"I began having doubts after our expedition, but I shut them down. I needed this so badly, Kurt, and for a long time, I was able to tell myself that there would be reasons for all that. I went to great lengths to fool myself. I even stayed away from you."

Kurt holds Blaine when he can't speak anymore because sobs heave his body, soothingly stroking his back. He feels incredibly guilty, and tears rise in his own eyes as he thinks that it's him who has done this to Blaine. He's the one who has taken away a place Blaine loved, where he felt good and useful and at home.

"Then you called for help, and I was nearby but they wouldn't let me go to you, and I didn't understand until I was there. When I realized what they had done...I went there, as high up as they let me, and I screamed at them until they kicked me out."

He laughs bitterly. "That's why I think they won't follow us. Ordering me to kill you was a test of my loyalties. I failed, but now they're rid of both of us. I think that's enough for them."

He cries for a long time. Kurt only lets go of him once to throw more wood on the fire, and then he holds him until his deepening breaths reveal that he has cried himself to sleep.

Kurt doesn't cry, but he lies awake for a long time, holding Blaine in his arms and wondering what he can do to make up for everything he has taken from him.


	9. Chapter 9

**Special thanks to voyageasia, who did a lot of cheerleading for this chapter and also helped me figure out some important plot points.**

When Kurt wakes, he has sand in his eyes. Everywhere else too, he suspects, but it's his eyes that bother him the most. He blinks and rubs it out, and when he can see again, he sits up and looks around.

Blaine lies beside him, curled into himself, looking very young and lost and alone. It's dusk, the sun just disappearing behind the horizon, and in the twilight, the world around him seems unreal. Wrong, somehow, as if something has lifted up the land, turned it around and then let it fall again with the wrong side up.

Their fire has almost gone out, and it's getting cold. He can't believe they've both slept for so long, undisturbed. They have been beyond stupid, he realizes, even if they don't believe Administration will come after them. He hasn't slept that well, nor that long compared to Blaine, but even he knows that that doesn't count as keeping watch.

He stirs the fire, puts on a few sticks. They need to be gone soon, but first he wants to put on some water for tea, so that Blaine can wake up to something warm.

This is what he has thought about during the day, while he held Blaine in his arms, sleeping, cheeks wet with tears: there is nothing he can do. Nothing to make up for all he has taken from Blaine, unknowingly at first but then not, except offer these little comforts. And that's not much; in fact, it's nothing at all.

There's one other thing, of course. But he doesn't know if he should offer it, or if Blaine would accept if he did. Blaine seems so innocent, so pure, somehow, even if he now has the beginnings of a beard and a gun at his side. It would seem like corrupting him, but...it would also make this...adventure of theirs a little more pleasant for Blaine. Kurt could offer it as a payment, for protecting him perhaps. After all, Blaine is the one with the gun, and if Administration should go after them, or if there are wild animals...

Blaine would never accept it as Kurt making amends, wouldn't even see why Kurt would want to make amends.

He isn't worried about risking their friendship. He's been friends with clients before, and...well, out here, there aren't exactly many other options for them. They kind of need to be friends if they want to survive.

What he worries about a little is Blaine falling in love with him. He isn't being conceited. Blaine seems like someone to fall in love easily, especially in their situation, where there is no one else and where – whether they have sex or not – they will be a lot more intimate with each other than they normally would be.

Still, he kind of wants to. That's surprising; he can't remember when, if ever, he has actually _wanted_ to.

He wonders if Blaine is a virgin.

Blaine wakes just as the water starts to boil. They eat and drink in silence, and then pack their things and get ready to leave.

It's almost completely dark now, and to his surprise, Kurt can see a light in the distance from where they came from.

Blaine sees it too. "Seems we didn't come as far as we thought," he says. "And we didn't even keep watch, or something. Seems like I was right and they won't come after us. Guess they just trust we're going to die out here."

He sounds bitter and relieved at the same time.

Kurt snorts. "Yes, it's almost insulting how little they care to make sure we're dead."

Blaine looks at him, and they laugh.

...

They walk. There are clouds tonight, and they can't see very well. They stumble along, holding hands so as not to lose each other, and again, Kurt finds himself enjoying the connection. But he starts to fear that if they carry on like this, walking at night with no real clue where they're going except _away, _they might end up with wet feet after all. Or burnt feet, for that matter. And when after an hour or two of walking Blaine stumbles and falls and twists his ankle, and Kurt hits his head on something that could be a low-hanging branch or...anything, really, he gives up.

"We should just stop here", he says. "Continue when it's light."

Blaine agrees readily and they spend a little while scrambling around in the dark gathering dry twigs to start a fire with. When it's burning, they look around cautiously and are relieved to find themselves at the beginning of what must have once been a small forest, but is now basically a mess of fallen trees and new plants trying to make the area their own. No corpses, thankfully, but there is rustling and sounds that indicate animals, which is good. Well, at least as long as the animals are the kind that gets eaten by them, as opposed to the kind that will try to eat them.

They gather more wood, which doesn't take long, and then they sit leaning against the trunk of a great fallen tree, and Kurt wonders what to do. They aren't tired, having just risen a few hours ago. They're not hungry. It's peaceful, and Kurt's not used to peaceful. Peaceful makes him uncomfortable.

Now or never, he thinks.

He shuffles a little closer, but stops short of actually touching Blaine. He feels a little awkward, but the darkness helps.

"Blaine?" he says. His voice seems too loud.

"Hmm?" Blaine replies. He sounds content, as relaxed as Kurt has ever seen him. Right, he thinks, Blaine enjoys peaceful. He hopes he won't disturb the peace with what he's going to ask.

"Have you ever...have you ever had sex?"

Silence, long enough for Kurt to wonder if Blaine is going to answer at all. Then,

"No."

"How come?"

"Um...it was just the way I was raised, I guess. My parents were...really old-fashioned about this, and they made it seem so beautiful to...to wait for the right person. And I just never met that person. And then, after...everything happened, for some time I thought that now I would never meet him, but mostly I just had other things on my mind."

Now Kurt is a little scared. He doesn't mind virgins, he's had virgins before, but he knows he can never be that person for Blaine. For a moment he wants to call the whole thing off and just not ask his next question, but then he thinks, it's not like he has many more options right now.

Plus, somehow, he really wants to see how Blaine will react to his first blowjob, the first orgasm caused by another person. The feeling is surprisingly strong, and so he doesn't hesitate anymore.

"Would you want to? With me, I mean?"

He can feel Blaine looking at him, but he doesn't look back. He tells himself it doesn't matter, that he's doing this merely as a favor to Blaine, but somehow, the answer gets more important with every second that passes.

"Yes."

"...Really?"

"Um...yes?"

"Oh. Um, I thought I would have to persuade you a little."

Blaine laughs. "Kurt, have you never seen me looking at you?"

Kurt thinks about it, and after a moment, he remembers how Blaine looked at him after he had first seen him blowing a client. "In the beginning, after I first came to the city. After that...but why did you never come to me, I mean, after you realized there was little chance for you to meet that one person? I'd have given you half off, as your friend."

He grins, but Blaine doesn't smile back.

"It may be true that I haven't met that one person, but even so, I never wanted to be just one among many. Out here, at least, I'll be your one and only."

Kurt expects him to laugh, but he doesn't. So after a while, Kurt just shrugs, says, "Okay," and reaches for Blaine's pants.

But Blaine grabs his wrist, stopping him.

"Kurt, wait."

"What is it?"

"I'm not – I haven't – listen, I think there's a stream down there somewhere, you can hear the water. Let's just wait til morning and I'll take a bath, and we can take it from there?"

"Blaine, I don't mind if you're not -" Kurt starts. He doesn't even know why he is so insistent – if Blaine wants to wait, why should he care? But he does, somehow; he fears that if they wait, it might all come to nothing. And then he wonders why that would be a bad thing. _This is for Blaine, remember?_

"There is sand_ everywhere,_" Blaine says. "I'm no expert, but I can't imagine that is comfortable for anyone involved."

There isn't much to say to that, so he rises and puts some more wood on a fire that doesn't really need it. Then he sits down again, at a little more distance from Blaine, and stretches his legs out in front of him. For some time, they don't do much more than stare into the flames.

Then Blaine says," There's something you could do, though."

"What's that?"

"Kiss me."

"I don't kiss," Kurt says in a reflex, like he always does whenever a client asks for this.

"Why not?" Blaine asks.

It's been a long time since Kurt has thought about that question. Kissing was always just something he doesn't do, but now he remembers that he has a reason for this.

"I guess kissing for me has been the same as sex for you," he says. "It's this...stupid romantic dream I had that I'd only kiss...well, that one person. Even though I really said goodbye to that idea a long time ago."

He knows that there is no such person for him, has known for a long time.

"So your reason for not kissing is now just as invalid as mine for not having sex."

"Pretty much."

"So kiss me."

...

Hesitantly, Kurt shuffles closer. He has the dim feeling that this isn't something he should do, but he can't think of a rational explanation, and he...he finds he wants to kiss Blaine. So he moves around a little until he finds a position that is comfortable for kissing, or so he thinks. Blaine watches him without speaking, amusement in his eyes, but also a kind of nervous expectation and a surprising tenderness.

His eyes slip closed as he finally presses his lips to Blaine's, and the first thing he notices is the scratching of Blaine's beard. _Mine will be the same, _he thinks, _I have to shave tomorrow. _

Then he stops thinking, and just feels. The scratch of the beard, yes, but also the softness of Blaine's lips against his, the wetness of Blaine's tongue in his mouth, the strange feeling in his belly when Blaine takes his lower lip between his teeth and nibbles and sucks.

He gives back as much as he gets, and soon the slightly awkward position they're in, sitting beside each other and hardly touching except for their mouths, isn't enough anymore. Without stopping the kiss, he gets up on his knees, and then straddles Blaine, pressing their bodies together. Blaine's hard cock pushes against him, and this is the moment he realizes that he is hard, too.

Which is weird. He never gets hard with a client, not after the very first few times; in fact he takes care to be touched as little as possible.

But Blaine is hardly a client. The pretext Kurt invented wasn't needed, and he can admit, at least to himself, that Blaine means more to him than anyone else in a really long time.

They kiss until their lips feel numb, and then a little more until they hurt. When Blaine moans into his mouth, Kurt tries to sneak a hand between them to palm Blaine's cock, but Blaine grabs his wrist and pushes his hand away to a safer place, and then goes right back to kissing him.

When the first birds start to sing, they let go of each other, and make up their pallets on the ground by the side of their dying fire. Kurt is glad that he doesn't have to hold Blaine today while sobs rack his body, but hold him he does, without pretending to have any reason except that he wants to.

They sleep.


	10. Chapter 10

**Thanks as always to voyageasia.**

Kurt wakes, and finds that Blaine is gone. A thousands thoughts bang against his sleep-addled mind – Administration, wild animals, he's left me,_ oh my God he's left me – _but before he can really start freaking out, he hears faint singing and remembers that Blaine wanted to take a bath.

He is so relieved he has to close his eyes again for a moment and just breathe. Blaine is fine, he thinks. And, guiltily: he's not here. I'm alone.

And how he needs to be alone. Only for a little, he knows he can't leave Blaine alone for long. He feels responsible for him; after all, it's his fault Blaine is out here in the first place. He doesn't want anything to happen to him. They're just safer together.

But just for a moment – he needs a little time to process what happened yesterday. He had never kissed anyone before, and he could never have imagined that it would feel so...so much. Completely ignoring any boundaries he set, encompassing him until he didn't know where he stopped and where Blaine began.

He's just...he isn't used to feeling so much. He's completely out of his depth, he doesn't know where to go from here, and so, suddenly he is eager to find Blaine and give him that blowjob, if just to get back on familiar territory.

First, he indulges in another moment of quiet freaking out while he packs their things and sets up a rabbit trap that with luck might provide them with dinner when they are ready to move on.

Then he stops freaking out and goes to find Blaine.

He sets off in the direction of the singing, bringing their backpacks with him. Blaine is in a small clearing, standing naked in a narrow stream with his back to Kurt. He seems to have washed his clothes; they are lying spread out in the sun to dry. He is in the process of washing his body and hair with the soap they brought with them. Kurt wonders for a moment what they'll do when they run out, but then he just watches Blaine, who is relaxed and unassuming, not knowing that he is being watched. Kurt swallows as Blaine's soapy hand parts the cheeks of his ass to wash between them. Regions of his body stir he doesn't want stirring, as that doesn't help him get back his bearings. So,

"Hey!" he calls out, and Blaine stops washing, but doesn't turn around.

"Kurt," he says, sounding slightly embarrassed. "Um...the water is cold."

Kurt needs a moment, but when he finally understands, he laughs. "I promise not to make any premature conclusions."

So Blaine turns around, and – no, he doesn't have to worry. Not that it's important for what Kurt has in mind, but he swallows again just in case. He suddenly doubts his ability to stay as detached as he wants to be, even with such a simple thing as a blowjob.

Before he can do anything about that, though, Blaine beckons him.

"What?" Kurt asks.

"Come here."

No, he won't. He won't kneel in the water, and besides, he is perched comfortably on the sun-warmed grass, and he has a really nice view. So nice that it can only be dangerous to be any closer to Blaine. He shakes his head.

"Come on!" Blaine insists. "You must have sand everywhere, too."

Of course, everything starts itching at that comment, and suddenly, the cool water seems very appealing. His clothes are filthy too, and who knows when they'll have another opportunity like this? And then there's Blaine, still standing there wet and naked, and suddenly it's too much to resist.

He undresses self-consciously – he tends to avoid nudity, with himself as well as with his clients, and without looking at Blaine, goes to wash his clothes. They are threadbare and very dirty, and he doesn't know how much of the fabric is actually only still held together by the dirt. So he washes gingerly and carefully in order to not accidentally destroy them in the process, and also – if he's honest – to stall dealing with Blaine again. He can feel Blaine's eyes on him, though, and he somehow can feel that Blaine knows exactly how scared he is, and that he won't allow him to stall much longer. And really, Blaine comes and takes the clothes one by one and spreads them out in the sun. Kurt isn't aware of how much he clings to the last piece until Blaine gently pries his fingers open to take it from him.

He stays there, on his knees, and hopes that Blaine will just come stand before him; he knows he won't protest anymore once Kurt has his lips on his cock. But Blaine steps behind him and makes him rise and turn, and Kurt can't think of what to do when he embraces him and presses their naked, wet bodies together.

A tremble goes through him, he feels it and Blaine feels it too. He pulls him even closer and strokes his back in a way that is surely supposed to be calming, but isn't.

No one has ever been so close to him. No one has ever...

"Are you cold?" Blaine asks, and Kurt shakes his head.

"It's -" he says. "I'm not – I have never – I'm not used to this."

Blaine takes a step back – a small one, he's still holding him, but it helps a little. But then he looks into Kurt's eyes, and somehow that's worse. Kurt doesn't know how to look in those eyes, he doesn't know what to feel...

But Blaine only smiles a little. "You're used to servicing your clients while you pretend not to despise them."

Surprised, Kurt laughs a little and starts shaking his head, but then he thinks, and suddenly he finds it's true. He has despised them all, every single one of them, even those he was friends with.

So he nods, a small movement of his head is all he manages. How is it that Blaine knows him so well, knows him better than himself?

"Do you despise me?" Blaine asks, and now Kurt shakes his head, vehemently.

"Never," he says.

"Then don't treat me like one of your clients," Blaine says. "I'm not your client. I'm your friend, and I'd like to be your lover."

Lover. Kurt jerks back, as if burnt.

"We can't be lovers, Blaine."

"Why not?"

"Because...I'm a whore. I don't have lovers. Nobody wants to be lovers with a whore."

The truth is a little more complicated, of course, though Kurt hardly knows what it is. But it's...through everything, through losing his parents and having to sell himself to survive and losing everything all over again, being beaten up and almost raped and threatened, he's been scared a lot of times in his life. And now he stands here, with Blaine, all alone, nothing there to threaten them, everything around them pretty and peaceful, and he still is terrified.

He has made himself a person, someone who can pick himself up again and again and remain himself. This person chooses his feelings like clothes. He has a closet full of feelings and picks those that are appropriate for the occasion, but most of the feelings stay in the closet and slowly gather dust. He never uses them, has no desire to do so. Feelings are dangerous, and he much prefers to use only those he can handle.

Blaine endangers this person he has made. Blaine makes him_ feel, _really feel, things he has no influence over. He doesn't like it, and there's no telling what would happen if he actually let Blaine so close to him that the word _lover_ would be warranted._ Lover _means more than sex. Sex he can handle, of course he can, even with Blaine, he thinks._ Lover – _he's pretty sure he can't handle that.

He doesn't tell Blaine, he wouldn't know how. Also, he doesn't really need to. Blaine can see he is scared. He can't see why, probably, but that doesn't matter so much. Blaine also doesn't let him hide behind his fear, doesn't leave him alone. He draws him closer again, forces him to close his eyes against the feelings that storm in on him, making him tremble.

"You're not a whore anymore, Kurt. There's nobody here to be a whore for," he says, and then he kisses him, without even giving him a chance to protest.

It happens again, and he can't help but give himself over to the kiss completely, his body acting on its own without any consideration for Kurt's fears or his feelings or anything but Blaine's lips on his. His mouth opens for Blaine's tongue, his arms wrap around Blaine's neck, his body presses against him, and it's all so much, too much, but he can't seem to stop...

Doesn't want to stop, if he's honest. It feels so good, and somewhere, in a tiny corner of his mind there is a little voice whispering that maybe he could let himself feel for just a moment. He doesn't listen for long, stops listening to his mind completely, he is only body now, only skin and lips and the sun drying his back. Soon, his hands start to roam over Blaine's body, and Blaine's hands over his. He feels his cock harden against Blaine's, and then their kiss isn't really a kiss anymore; they just pant into each other's mouths. Once, he draws back a little so he can see Blaine's face, and he knows he could drop to his knees now and put his mouth on Blaine and end it all in seconds. Blaine is so far gone, clutching to Kurt and pressing against him, his eyes closed and his mouth slack. But he doesn't want to end it, doesn't even think about it. He knows he probably looks the same; in a way, this is his first time too.

He puts his mouth back on Blaine's, and for a little while, they go back to just kissing, though there's nothing 'just' about it with their bodies and their cocks rubbing against each other, even as their hands stay in one place for now. Blaine has his in Kurt's hair, angling his head just like he wants it, and Kurt's hands are spread on Blaine's back, but soon, he can't resist anymore and slides them down to Blaine's ass. He presses him against him, and Blaine moans in his mouth as their cocks slide against each other once more. Kurt starts rocking them a little, and then faster because it feels so good, and soon Blaine moans continuously and Kurt suspects he himself does too.

He couldn't stop now if he tried, but nothing could be so far from his mind; he still wants to see Blaine come, but increasingly he wants to come, too, and he pushes one hand between them and closes it around both their cocks, and that's all it takes.

Blaine freezes, whispers, "Kurt," and squeezes his eyes shut as he comes over Kurt's hand. Kurt feels him pulsate against his cock, and that sends him over; he digs his fingers into Blaine's ass and cries out.

On wobbly knees, they walk out of the water and lie down on the grass. It's just warm enough; soon, Kurt knows, they'll have to go wash again and then dress, hoping that their clothes are dry. They'll check the traps he set up before and then they'll start walking again, away from here.

And he'll start over-thinking things and worrying if he has done the right thing and trying not to let Blaine too close while he knows at the same time that it's too late for that already.

He looks at Blaine. He has his eyes closed and is smiling a little; he looks as if there's nothing to worry about in the whole world. And for once, Kurt agrees. He manages to get his mind to shut up or at least ignore the voices that tell him there's always something to worry about, and he settles down beside Blaine, puts his head on Blaine's shoulder and smiles as Blaine pulls him closer. He closes his eyes. For now, all is good.


	11. Chapter 11

**Thanks as always to voyageasia for betaing!**

At some point, they make themselves stand up and leave.

Blaine turns and looks back a little wistfully, and says,

"I wish we could stay here. It's so beautiful."

"You only say that because of the sex," Kurt teases, but then gets serious. "It's too close still, and the clearing is too small for us to build a house."

They'll need some kind of a house before winter; and who knows when it'll be winter. The seasons are all messed up, or else his sense of time is; but as far as he knows, he's been in the city for nearly a year, and when he arrived it was winter, or at least very close. Now, more or less a year later, it's warm, late spring or early summer. There's no telling what will be next.

As they walk, Kurt worries about that, and is glad his mind is occupied. He knows what he would worry about otherwise, and there's absolutely no sense in that. At least, with thinking about the house and winter, he can get to planning and do something useful. He'd like not to have to build from scratch, because he isn't that good at it, and also because the axe they brought is small, nothing to cut down trees with. But he'd also like not to settle down in what used to be a village or a town, because of – well, corpses. A farmhouse would be nice, with strong, salvageable beams and plenty of land around to build and try a bit of farming themselves. Water in the vicinity, but a former farmhouse is bound to have that. Far enough from the city that they can feel safe, but close enough that they might venture back one full moon and meet with Santana and Rachel.

He doesn't share his thoughts with Blaine. They walk in silence, not touching, and Kurt suspects Blaine is lost in his own thoughts. He doesn't know what they are, if Blaine thinks about the future like he does, or if he remembers this morning in the clearing, or if he thinks of even farther back. He doesn't know...

"I don't know anything about you," he says suddenly. "You know everything about me, but I know nothing about you."

Blaine looks at him. "What do you want to know?" he asks with a small smile.

Kurt is at a loss. He has a lot of questions, but all of them...it is almost sure that whatever he asks, the answer will be painful for Blaine.

Blaine must see the doubt on his face. "You can ask, Kurt. I have lost everyone, as most people have. It still hurts, sometimes, but I'm okay with talking about them."

Kurt nods. "So – where are you from? What did you do before...everything?"

"I'm from a town in the south. My mother was a trader, she bought and sold fine fabrics. We were...wealthy, I guess. But the town was at the foot of a mountain, and that mountain – well, it exploded. I don't think anyone there survived."

"But you -"

"I was lucky. I was learning my mother's trade, and a few weeks before, she had sent me to my uncle, who lives in what now is the city. It had another name then, of course, but I guess that's not important anymore. I was supposed to learn more from him, and negotiate trade. Mostly I was arguing with him, though."

"So there's someone left," Kurt says softly, and Blaine gives him a questioning look.

"You said you had lost everyone, earlier. But you still have your uncle..."

"He's alive, yes. But I don't talk to him anymore. I mean, I haven't, even before -" he gestures between them, then continues. "My uncle is not a good person. We never got along, and then, when...the apocalypse happened and people arrived in the city, he refused to take fugitives. He has an enormous house, one of the biggest in town, and there was no one living there except him and me. And he refused to take people in who had lost everything."

Kurt nods. He can imagine that, to Blaine, not helping when one is in the position to is one of the worst things a person can do. "What did you do?" he asks.

"At first, I tried to talk to him, reason with him, to no avail. Then I moved out, into the quarters the city provides for Streetsweepers, and – well, Administration took the house and turned it into living quarters. He has a bed now in a room he shares with two others, same as everyone else."

He actually grins a little when he says that, and Kurt grins back at him, but then he just has to ask,

"Don't you regret it? Not talking to him when he's the only family you have left and now it's...unlikely for you to see him again?"

"When you put it like that, maybe I should. But I don't see it that way. Some time after the apocalypse, I decided that I would do what I thought was right, and I wouldn't spend my time anymore with people I didn't actually like, or couldn't at least work together with. So I stopped talking to my uncle. And later, when Administration became someone I couldn't work with anymore, I left the city."

"Seems kind of ironic you're stuck with me now," Kurt mumbles, not sure if he really wants to be heard. But Blaine does.

"Why?"

"Cause I'm abrasive, and I snap at you, and I push you away. And I disagree with almost everything you say."

Blaine chuckles. "True. But I do like you, you know. You're the best friend I've ever had, and like it or not, you're also my lover."

Kurt sticks his tongue out at him, and thinks he should just leave it at that. What he wants to say will be awkward, no matter how he says it. But it suddenly seems so important, so he says it anyway.

"Just don't fall in love with me, please."

Blaine's smile seems a little bit sad as he promises, "I won't."

…...

They keep walking for a few days, resting when they get tired and at night.

It's not always easy. Too often, the jagged landscape reminds them of what has occurred; one or both of them get melancholy and silent. Once or twice, they stumble over bones or see the remains of a body under the trunk of a fallen tree. And still, the utter silence and loneliness around them is hard to grasp.

Then there's the wind. It tends to lay off for days so they forget it's an issue, only to then attack them out of the blue. One day, it builds up into a full-grown storm, and they spend a few miserable hours ducked behind a low hill, the only shelter the area offers. The house they will be building, Kurt thinks, will have to be able to withstand a lot, and he worries again.

Another thing also worried him, although he is actually kind of glad about it. For some reason, they don't...do anything when they rest. They kiss often, but it never leads to anything more. Maybe they need closeness more than sex right now, Kurt thinks. Or maybe, just like him, Blaine needs some time to process. Or maybe he has second thoughts about everything, just as Kurt is trying to get used to the idea of being someone's...well. He isn't sure how this whole 'lover'-thing is supposed to work when they don't actually do anything. Or, he isn't sure how the 'lover'-thing works, period. He doesn't know how to signalize desire, or even just willingness, without resorting to faking or advertising. He still has the feeling he should do something for Blaine, but he knows Blaine doesn't share that opinion, and he doesn't know how to do this without coming across like a...well, a whore. There's also the fact that he's dirty and hasn't shaved for days. Blaine is the same, but he seems to have more of a problem with it than Kurt has. He just doesn't know. There are too many 'what ifs' in his mind to initiate anything. So he does nothing.

He does, though, hold Blaine in his arms every night. He isn't sure he likes it. It takes him longer to fall asleep because he can't move around so much, and there's also sometimes the feeling of being trapped, of having to get away...But it's Blaine. It's Blaine, and he seems to need this, and there are parts of Kurt that love the closeness and the feeling of being needed, and so he holds him and even ignores the root digging into his back until sheer exhaustion forces him into sleep.

One day, after walking a little, Kurt notices the salty smell of the sea, and some time later, they stand at a sort of beach, little waves lapping at their feet as if they had every right to be here, as if there hadn't been land here, with people living on it. But the sea is volatile, it takes lives; every child born in a fishing village knows that. And so, for a little time as they rest here, Kurt actually feels at peace, just because everything seems so familiar.

Then, far, far in the distance, he sees the distinctive peak of a mountain. At first he doesn't know how he knows it, but then, as he looks at it a little longer, he remembers. He used to see this mountain every day, much closer, on the other side of the bay his village was in. So that means -

"Somewhere there," he says, pointing across the endless water, "was my village."

His voice shakes a little, no matter how much he tries to suppress it. No matter that the sea took his family years ago, and that at the actual apocalypse, he lost a lot less than most people.

Blaine doesn't say anything, just puts an arm around him, and Kurt leans against him and ignores the tears running down his cheeks.

They sit silently for a long time as Kurt says a last and final goodbye to his world as it has been before.


	12. Chapter 12

**As always, thanks to voyageasia for betaing.**

**Warning for this chapter and future chapters, for unsafe sex. No condoms after the apocalypse.**

At some point, they rise, and Kurt turns one last time, and then - he runs. He just runs, without warning, without telling Blaine. He runs half forward, half to the side, away from the sea. They still need a place to live, and he won't do that, he won't live by the sea and catch the fish that are fat from eating the bodies of his friends.

He hears Blaine calling his name, faintly, but he doesn't react. He keeps on running until he feels like he is about to pass out. He feels nauseous and stands, panting, with his hands on his knees, and then lies down on the ground and stays there for a long time, until finally Blaine catches up with him.

Blaine drops down beside him and hugs him, hard, and for a long time doesn't let go. Finally, Kurt realizes that he is crying, and it scares him. He acted on impulse, he never meant to hurt Blaine, but apparently, he did.

"What's the matter?" he asks. "Why are you crying?"

Blaine shrugs, wiping his eyes, but he only releases his grip on Kurt as much as absolutely necessary.

"You were gone," he says. "I couldn't find you, you were gone, and I...I was all alone. Please, don't leave me alone, Kurt."

"I won't," Kurt says, "I'm so sorry. I never wanted to run away from you, I just needed to get away...from there."

"I know," Blaine says, still clutching at Kurt. "I know. Just...it wasn't even that long, but...I've never been that alone in all my life. I was - I was so scared."

Kurt holds him, close to tears himself now. He can understand that fear, remembers how he panicked when he woke up and Blaine wasn't there. That lasted only the thirty seconds or so before he heard him singing, but now, for Blaine, it must have been - he doesn't even know. He hadn't planned to run far, he hadn't planned _anything, _but...there were hills, he remembers, and also a small forest. Assuming Blaine walked, and maybe lost his track a few times, and had to turn around and look in another direction...Blaine must have looked for him for hours.

"I'm sorry," he says, holding Blaine and stroking his back. "I'll never leave you, I'll never do that again..."

Suddenly, Blaine lifts his head from Kurt's shoulder, and kisses him hard. It almost hurts, and Kurt thinks he tasted blood at some point, but he lets Blaine kiss him, even kisses back after a time when he thinks he'll not lose his tongue in the process.

He gives himself over to Blaine, feeling like he owes him and also because he wants to, as Blaine's lips leave his mouth and travel across his neck, his throat, but as Blaine's hands lift his shirt, he stops him.

"Blaine," he whispers. "What are you doing?"

"I want to feel you," Blaine says. "I want to feel you're here, with me. I want to blow you."

"O-okay," Kurt says, and feels a little crazy as he adds, "but can we talk first?"

Blaine seems reluctant to let go, so Kurt says, "You can keep touching me, if you want."

So Blaine does; he stops kissing Kurt, which a part of him can't help but regret, but he keeps his hands on him. He can't seem to control them; they roam over Kurt's body as if to make sure all of him is really there, and it makes it decidedly harder for Kurt to concentrate on his words and say,

"I understand why now, but - but why only now? I mean, there were so many other opportunities, and you never started something..." He feels like an idiot suddenly. He's been offered a blowjob - receiving, not giving, guess how often that happens - and here he is, asking stupid questions. He rubs his face with his hands; his body is tense, and he stupidly wishes to just go back a few hours and do everything differently. Not run away, for one thing. And not ask stupid questions he isn't sure he actually wants to know the answer to, if Blaine even knows it.

But he seems to.

"I wasn't...I'm still not sure," he says, blushing and fumbling for his words. "I don't know if you actually, really want to have sex with me. If you - you know, if you actually like having sex."

Now Kurt has known that Blaine has some...misgivings about what he did before, about how he earned his living and his sense of self. He just never would have come up with this.

He thinks about it, and the answer is a little sad but doesn't really surprise him.

"I don't know," he says. "I never actually did it...just for fun." He pauses, unsure of how Blaine will receive this. Then he thinks of something more.

"I like kissing you," he offers. "And I liked what we did the other day. I'm willing to try out the rest."

He lies back again, half hoping that Blaine will just go on with what he had wanted to do; but no, he's spoiled that, probably.

"Why didn't you?" Blaine asks. "You know, initiate...things."

"You're a virgin. I was giving you time."

But Blaine gives him a look, and he reluctantly adds,

"And I was insecure about how to initiate anything without coming on too strong, and scared that you'd reject me, and a thousand other things I won't repeat because none of it makes any sense and I've forgotten most of it."

Blaine nods thoughtfully, and then he just sits there for a time, for once not touching Kurt. Kurt misses his touch, absurdly, but can't quite bring himself to actually touch Blaine himself.

Blaine nods again, and then, without preamble, opens Kurt's pants.

Suddenly, Kurt is breathless, and when Blaine looks at him and asks,

"Anything else you want to say?", he can only mutely shake his head, close his eyes and accept whatever is coming.

He gasps as without further ado, Blaine wraps his lips around the tip of his cock. There's no insecurity, no hesitation in Blaine's actions. He is clearly inexperienced - Kurt feels his teeth scraping against him once or twice, but he doesn't mind, he is so busy watching and feeling Blaine exploring him with his lips and his tongue, and he marvels at the way Blaine seems to actually enjoy himself.

Then he doesn't think about anything anymore except the feelings Blaine wakes in him. He has known this feels good, of course - a lot of men have been very enthusiastic recipients of the same kind of attention from him, and then there was this one time in his village when a client had offered to reciprocate to avoid payment and Kurt had agreed because he'd had a good week and was curious - but this - this is more than he could have imagined. He lets his head sink back and closes his eyes, concentrating only on keeping his hips still and not coming. He wants to draw this out, he has never felt this way before, and it's so, so good.

Blaine seems to be in no hurry. He's sucking him gently, but somehow it's clear that he knows he could go stronger, but doesn't want to yet. To be fair, Kurt's mind isn't working at its best at the moment, as all the blood is needed in other places, but he thinks - this is entirely on Blaine's terms, and Blaine is doing it just as much for himself as for Kurt. It's Blaine who gets what he wants here. Kurt is just along for the ride, and it feels so good to just lie back and let someone take care of him for a change that he groans loudly, and as Blaine hums around him in approval, he throws his arm over his face and curses as the vibrations make his whole body shiver and he comes in Blaine's mouth.

He needs a few moments to just lie there and get back his bearings, while Blaine sits beside him and grins down on him.

Then he tries to speak. He needs a few tries, clearing his throat and starting again, but finally, he is able to say,

"This...I...I liked this."

"Good," Blaine says, still grinning. "I liked it too."

"May I...do you want me to...reciprocate?"

Blaine nods, suddenly shy. "If you want to."

How could Kurt say no? He doesn't know if he wants to, exactly - but then again, he certainly wants Blaine to feel as good as he does, and if this is the way to do it, he is all for it. So he makes Blaine lie down, and opens his pants, and wraps his lips around him in one quick move. And as he feels the familiar form in his mouth, he knows what to do; everything feels as he is accustomed to. He does everything he knows to get his client off as quickly and as spectacularly as possible. Blaine groans, surprised and certainly appreciative, but then puts his hand on Kurt's cheek and makes him look up for a moment, and looks him in the eyes. It's a plea, a silent one, but Kurt understands: Don't forget it's me you are doing this to. Don't treat me like just anyone.

And Kurt looks at him, and then closes his eyes, and does everything differently. For the first time, he lets himself feel what he is doing, lets himself smell, and taste. He takes his time, his mind less on getting Blaine off than on getting to know him, getting to know exactly what he likes. He takes his clues from every gasp, every moan, every shiver, and when Blaine finally arches his back and comes, Kurt finds he doesn't want to draw back as he usually does. He wants to taste him, wants to take everything Blaine has to give him. So he swallows, and sits up and wiped his mouth, and then looks down on Blaine who is lying there with a look of such bliss on his face that Kurt can't help but smile. It feels good, he realizes, to be the one who made someone - who made Blaine feel like this, and he presses a kiss on Blaine's belly and lies down beside him, taking his hand.

Blaine smiles with his eyes closed, and after a while, he speaks.

"I'm so glad I went first."

"Why?" Kurt asks, though blowing Blaine has left him in a weird state of half arousal, half satisfaction, and he longs to feel like Blaine: sated and for now completely at peace with the world.

But Blaine has another reason.

"I'd never had the courage to go through with it if you had done that to me first. I'd have had performance anxiety."

Kurt snorts and laughs. "Not necessary at all."

They lie for a bit, and somehow Blaine's head lands on his shoulder, and then they are kissing. But at some point, Kurt nudges him away and sits up. There's still some daylight left, surprisingly; he has the feeling they've been lying here for hours at least. But now he wants to get going, he wants to find a place for them, he wants to stop wandering.

"Come on," he says, poking Blaine to rouse him. "We still have to find a place to live."

Blaine sits up reluctantly and looks around.

"How long -" he asks reluctantly, "how far away do you have to be from the sea to feel comfortable?"

Kurt stands up, looks around, smells. He can imagine to be able to smell the sea here if the wind is right; also, maybe with the right light he could see it glistening on the horizon. But it's far enough, he thinks; maybe, in time, he could even find it comforting.

"It should be okay," he says. "Why?"

"Look around," Blaine says.

Kurt does. They're in a wide open place, but not too far away is the little forest he remembers running through, and a little way away is what looks like the remains of a wooden house, and behind that, barely visible, is a small stream.

They need to go to that house, and he dreads it; who knows what they will find. But they have to know how much of the structure is still useable, if they will be able to rebuild. But if they can - if they can, it's pretty much perfect.

He nods.

"I think we found it."


	13. Chapter 13

**My awesome beta, voyageasia (HKVoyage on AO3), has written her first fic! You should go check it out.**

As they prepare to go explore, Blaine takes a backpack from the ground and tosses it to Kurt.

"Here. You can carry that yourself now."

"Oh...I...you..." Kurt stutters.

"You left it when you went running off. Fortunately, I wasn't freaking out enough yet, so I remembered to take it with me when I went looking for you."

Kurt slumps down on the ground again, hands covering his eyes. He can't believe he was so careless. These backpacks contain everything they own, everything...without them, they wouldn't have a chance. He has always been poor; knows how to make a little go a long way, he knows how to find things and make use of them, but without the tools in the backpack...And if Blaine hadn't been level-headed enough to take them with him...if a high tide had come...

"We'd have nothing," he realizes.

"We'd have our lives," Blaine replies, who was apparently able to follow Kurt's line of thinking. "It's still a lot more than I expected to have at this point, if I'm honest."

That's also his fault. That Blaine's life is in danger at all is all because of him; he's the one who brought them into this situation...

"Stop it," Blaine says sharply, and Kurt realizes he is shaking. Blaine grabs his upper arms and holds him still, speaks to him in a voice that is soft now, comforting and a little worried.

"You forgot something," he says. "It's okay. It happens. You got...emotional and ran away. Don't be so hard on yourself."

But Kurt shakes his head. Blaine doesn't understand, and he himself only realizes now...this isn't him. None of it. He doesn't sit somewhere crying. He doesn't panic, doesn't run away. He doesn't stand somewhere shaking because something has gone wrong, he doesn't rely on someone else to look after him and comfort him.

When he feels sure of his voice again, he says, "I don't get emotional."

Blaine looks at him, smiling wryly. "Maybe it's time you did," he says.

The house is about as bad as Kurt imagined. It smells of decay and emptiness; fortunately, it doesn't smell like death. That's just because the bones have been gnawed clean; there's just nothing left that could smell. It must have been a large family who used to live here. The house is certainly large enough, and it takes them a long time to gather their remains, carried about and scattered by whatever animals had come and eaten them. They move slowly and cautiously around the fallen beams and broken roof, every groan of the ancient wood making them jump.

It's a gruesome task. Kurt can see how Blaine gets quieter and more withdrawn by the second, and he almost wishes he would cry again. If he cried, Kurt could comfort him, but when he's like this, Kurt feels so apart from him he doesn't know how to reach him at all.

They bury the bones, and then they make a fire outside and sit and dine on dried meat and old bread that tastes a little better when they toast it. Neither of them has the stomach to hunt and kill an animal tonight, so that will have to do. They are quiet while they eat, each lost in their own thoughts, but Kurt can somehow feel that Blaine is...a little better, not so far away anymore, and silently, he takes his hand and squeezes it. He is surprised when Blaine looks up and smiles at him.

"What happens now?" he asks."Tomorrow?"

"Well, we start building," Kurt answers. "I really want us to have a roof over our head by...the day after tomorrow at the latest. I have no idea what to expect from the weather, but I think it's getting colder at night, and I don't want us to be caught unawares."

"I have no idea how to build a house," Blaine admits sheepishly. "In fact, I don't think I have a lot of practical skills altogether."

"You caught a lot of dinners," Kurt says. "That was pretty practical. Anyway, I have built one house by myself and helped with a few others. My dad taught me to work with wood, but...well, I don't have the tools or...well, the wood, really. I'm sure I can build something that will keep together, just don't expect it to be pretty."

"But I want to help."

"Oh, you'll have to,. There are a lot of tasks that don't require knowledge on building. Figuring out how to get the beams we can still use to the building site without the rest of the roof breaking down on us among them."

They sit in silence for a while, Kurt making a mental list of all the things they'll have to do tomorrow, finally taking a stick from the fire and using the sooty tip to write on a flat stone.

Then, Blaine takes his hand. "Look," he says.

Kurt looks up into a world tinted pink and the most perfect sunset. It belies anything bad could ever happen in a world where something as beautiful as this exists; no matter they are sitting not a mile from a freshly shoveled grave.

Kurt shrugs a little; he doesn't very much like this particular side of himself, the inability to see beauty for itself, without marring it by seeing the irony in it or the ugliness behind it.

He smiles, mostly for Blaine, and squeezes his hand. He appreciates very much that Blaine is the complete opposite of him in this, that he is able to see beauty everywhere and in everything.

"It is still such a beautiful world," Blaine says, voice full of wonder, face open in awe and gleaming with the beams of the evening sun.

And inexplicably, Kurt thinks, "You are the most beautiful thing in it."

He doesn't know where that thought came from, and it scares him; but at the same time, he is glad that apparently, he is able to see pure beauty in something. There is no irony or ugliness in Blaine.

They work their asses off the next days.. There is not much to do at this point that demands Kurt's questionable expertise. They are clearing debris, sorting stuff they find into things they can still use and things that are too broken, all the time wary of any shift in the ruins that might make their destiny the same as that of the family who once lived here.

Kurt quickly sees that the work will take longer than he thought. They can't move the beams he wants without taking down the roof first, and to do that he has to build a ladder first. The tasks add up, they keep discovering things they must do before other things can be done, and they just hope the weather holds; if not, Kurt thinks, he has to build a temporary shelter.

The are so exhausted in the evenings that they don't even think of doing anything more than kiss goodnight.

At some point, they lean the ladder against the most stable-looking wall of the house, and Blaine climbs up to pry loose the tiles of the roof. He tosses them down to Kurt, who chooses the ones they can still use, and takes away the others as fuel for their fires.

Then, just like that, Blaine falls. Kurt doesn't see how it happens, if something startles him, if he loses his grip on the roof, if he missteps. It's so fast that Kurt stands rooted to his spot for several seconds before he runs to Blaine, who lies on the ground, eyes closed, unmoving.

"Blaine?" Kurt cries, voice shrill with fear. He drops on his knees beside him, listens for breathing, feels for heartbeat. For a fraction of a second he can find neither, and he feels such fear that his own heart threatens to stop. But then Blaine draws a deep breath and opens his eyes, and Kurt feels tears of relieve sting behind his eyelids, but he doesn't let them fall. Instead, he sits up a little and takes Blaine's hand, smiles at him.

"What happened?" Blaine asks.

"You fell down the ladder," Kurt says. "Are you okay?"

Blaine nods, grimaces, and vomits.

Kurt makes up Blaine's pallet beside the fire and helps him lay down on it. Blaine has difficulty walking, he must have twisted his ankle or something, but the real problem is that apparently his head hurts so bad that whenever he moves too much, he vomits from the pain. At least that's how it seems. Kurt doesn't really know, as Blaine doesn't really talk, just closes his eyes and lies there after once whispering, "I'm sorry."

Kurt is worried. He doesn't show it, at least he doesn't think so, but he is terribly, terribly worried. He doesn't continue working on the house, weather be damned, but instead chooses work he can do while sitting by Blaine's side. He finds some moth-eaten sacks in the ruins of the house that he mends and takes apart and sews together again, and fills with moss and grass and other sacks that are too threadbare to use otherwise, and anything soft he can find, and makes a mattress for Blaine and then one for himself. He hates to leave Blaine's bedside even to relieve himself, and at first doesn't trust the signs that he is recovering.

But finally, he can see Blaine is indeed better, and the first time he dares to leave his bedside for more than a minute, he finally goes to recover a treasure.

There is a big chest in the house, barely visible under a pile of debris. He has always postponed its recovery for other projects that seemed more urgent, but he thinks it must be a clothing chest. One side of the lid is a little bashed in, but the rest is okay, and if there is indeed clothing in it, he has hopes it might still be usable.

He sweeps the debris away and drags the chest outside to Blaine, and there he opens it.

He gasps as clothing practically spills out of the chest. He digs through it, careful to hide the children's garments from Blaine. He will be feeling bad enough to wear the clothes of dead people, but there's really nothing to be done. They can build a house, they can grow food, and while both of them are handy enough with a needle to alter and mend clothes, neither of them knows how to spin or weave. Kurt knows; seeing that Blaine was learning to be a fabric merchant, he had some hopes that Blaine might know something about the production of fabric, but no.

"I am a very good judge of the quality of the weaving, and can estimate pretty closely for how much it will sell," Blaine had said. Which...has certainly been useful at some other point in his life.

The clothes they are wearing now barely deserve the name, so they'll have to wear those in the chest. But Kurt knows that while he sees clothes, and sees what they can use and what not, and what has to be altered and how much the moths and the damp have gotten into them, Blaine will see the lives of the people that once wore them, and he will grieve.

There is no help for that. But Kurt can shield him from the worst of it, and so he hides the tiny, lovingly made pants and dresses and onesies. Later, he will ruthlessly tear them apart and use the fabric to mend the others. Although he has some weird feelings about saving them, for...for whom?

It's not likely there will be children here any time soon.

That night, as he lies on his pallet next to Blaine, he realizes that he wants there to be. Not children, necessarily, but other people. He loves Blaine, he has come to terms with that, and is even able to admit it to himself in the darkness. The only thing left to be determined about that is in what capacity.

He loves Blaine, but it is a little bit lonely out here with only the two of them. And...he doesn't like to admit that, even alone in the darkness, but he misses his friends, even if he doesn't know if he can really call them that. Their time together was maybe too short and too tumultuous to call them friends, but...he misses them. He won't cut up the women's garments, even if they are in better condition than most of the men's, he will save them for Rachel and Santana and Brittany to wear if they come to join them.

He wonders what it's like now in the city, after all those weeks, and if, later, when Blaine's recovered and they have built their house and if the weather holds, they might go back. He wonders if they will still be waiting for them at the gate, in a night with a full moon.


	14. Chapter 14

**Thanks as always to voyageasia for betaing and cheerleading!**

They manage to build a house. Or, well. It has four walls and a roof with a hole in it that will hopefully let out the smoke of their fire without letting too much rain in. There's a single window that closes with shutters, and a door. It's just one room, but it will keep the cold out, which is all they want for now.

It's a little crooked, but Blaine declares it charming, and goes to arrange their mattresses and their scant belongings in it. It's small, but there would be room for a table and some chairs, and a proper bed frame so they won't have to sleep on the floor anymore, and so Kurt starts building the furniture.

The first night they sleep in their new home, it's raining, which makes them very glad for the roof over their heads. It is also a test for the roof, and Kurt hopes that it won't leak too badly. For now though, it's cozy; the rain taps on the walls and the roof, the remains of the fire shedding a warm light. Blaine cuddles close to him.

"I want us to christen the house," he says, voice quiet.

Kurt swallows. "How do you want to do that?" he asks, though he knows. For once, he's totally on board, but he wants particulars.

"I want you to fuck me," Blaine says, and God, that sounds so dirty coming from him, Kurt is hard in an instant. He says it without hesitation, without embarrassment, too, as if...as if it's been on his mind a while. Kurt shifts.

"Do you do that?"

"I have, occasionally," Kurt says. He's topped from time to time; he prefers giving blowjobs, but sometimes a client has insisted on fucking. He's had to get himself ready with his hand in order to be able to, but that won't be necessary today. His cock says that fucking Blaine is a very good idea, and Kurt himself starts to believe that too.

"I would...very much like to do it with you," he says, and leans closer to Blaine, letting him feel his erection. That's as far as he goes, though; for some reason, he is shy, can't find the courage to actually initiate what he knows Blaine wants. They lie for a moment, listening to the rain. Then Kurt turns his head and finds Blaine is watching him. His hair is gleaming in the firelight, and his mouth is slightly open, and Kurt just has to kiss him. From then on, it's easy. They kiss until they don't do much more than pant into each others' mouths, and Kurt sneaks a hand under Blaine's night shirt and strokes his ass. Blaine swallows a moan and kisses him again, his tongue in Kurt's mouth mimicking what he wants Kurt to do.

"Shit," Kurt murmurs, and Blaine looks so confused he has to laugh. "Wait a second. I have to get something." He scrambles out of bed and rummages in his backpack until he finds the little bottle with the oil.

It's not much, they'll have to ration it. But not today, not for Blaine's first time. His own first time hurt abominably because neither he nor his client knew what they were doing, but for Blaine, it won't be like this. He'll make it good for Blaine, and he'll use as much oil as he needs to.

He puts the bottle on the floor next to the bed where he can reach it, but then goes back to kissing Blaine, laying him out on the bed and putting his mouth everywhere he can reach. When he bends down to suck on Blaine's nipple, he moans and arches his back, and so Kurt does that for a while, licking and sucking and gently biting Blaine's nipples and his neck until he writhes on the bed, glistening with sweat and murmuring incoherently.

Then he oils up his fingers and puts one against Blaine's hole, gently pressing, but not sliding inside.

"Are you ready?" he asks.

Blaine nods, his eyes half closed. "Please. I really want this, Kurt."

"Just a finger now." He pushes in, slowly, carefully. It's hot and it's tight, but it yields, engulfs him. It scares him a little; he feels surrounded by Blaine, even though it's just one finger, but he feels - he knows - he can lose himself in this, in Blaine.

But Blaine is sighing sweetly under him, relieved, as if he is finally getting what he needs, and Kurt forgets his fear, forgets everything beyond what is right in front of him, and he moves his finger and kisses Blaine's neck. Blaine presses up against him, seeking more, and Kurt gives it to him, slicks up a second finger and slides it in with the first. Blaine moans, but it doesn't sound pained. When Kurt crooks his fingers, Blaine claws at his arms. He can't seem to stay still; his breath comes in short, hard gasps. He sounds desperate and wild.

"Are you okay?" Kurt whispers.

Blaine nods, then shakes his head. "I'm so close already, Kurt. I want to come with you inside me. Not just your fingers. Please, Kurt. Please."

"Just one more finger," Kurt negotiates, and when Blaine frantically shakes his head, he adds, "I don't want to hurt you."

Blaine takes a deep breath. He looks frustrated and somewhat exasperated, Kurt thinks, as if he should be pinching the bridge of his nose and struggling to be patient.

"Kurt," he says, very slowly. "I think if you don't fuck me now, I'll hurt you."

Kurt gasps a laugh, and he looks at Blaine, and sees that he will welcome any pain there might be, as a proof this has really happened. So he scissors his fingers once more and then slowly pulls them out, and when Blaine whimpers, he kisses him quickly before he once more grabs the oil and slicks himself up, quickly but thoroughly.

Blaine wriggles impatiently on the bed, and Kurt laughs and surrenders, positioning himself at Blaine's hole and slowly, slowly pushing in. Blaine wants him to hurry; he pushes against him, trying to make him enter more quickly, but Kurt stops him with a firm hand on his belly.

"I won't hurt you," he says. "Don't make me hurt you."

He is happy when finally Blaine relaxes, releases the frantic energy he has been holding, and just feels. Kurt closes his eyes, and they groan in unison as they finally realize just how good it feels. Kurt pushes in slowly, wanting to let Blaine feel that this is really happening, and that it is something worth savoring.

He keeps his eyes on Blaine's face as he slowly begins to really fuck him, although he longs to close his eyes and just feel. But he won't, he needs to see this, needs to see that it's Blaine, and besides, Blaine's face is a thing of beauty. Every emotion shows on it, and Kurt looks for signs of distress, but finds none; on Blaine's face there is wonder, and lust, and bliss, and...now he closes his eyes, it becomes too much for him to see, he can't watch this. He takes his cues instead from the sounds Blaine makes, the gasps and moans and the murmurings of his name, and when the last become more insistent, when everything Blaine says turns into, "Kurt, Kurt, Kurt," he knows to open his eyes again, and watches Blaine's face contort in pleasure as he comes with one hand on his cock and the other digging into Kurt's shoulder. Kurt's own orgasm rushes through him at that sight, and he feels it like a kind of afterthought, as if the main event had been over when Blaine called his name one final time, but it isn't less for that.

He pulls out slowly and smiles at Blaine's whine, and cleans them up with a rag that is wet with unfortunately cold rainwater. Then he lies down, his head on Blaine's shoulder and listens to the rain and the fire crackling and Blaine's calm breathing, and is content.

Until he feels Blaine's gaze on him, and looks up at him.

Now he can't ignore it anymore. He can't ignore being looked at with so much ...so much love.

"You broke your promise," he says.

"Mmmh?" Blaine says, and he sounds so content and sleepy that Kurt regrets saying anything. He shouldn't have, really, there is nothing either of them can do, and maybe it's better -

"What promise did I break?" Blaine asks, and oh. He has those eyes on him again, guileless, innocent, and he can't - But it's too late.

"You promised not to fall in love with me."

A long silence, and Kurt only knows that Blaine hasn't fallen asleep because the shoulder which he lies on is rising and falling irregularly as Blaine draws breath to answer and then releases it again without saying anything.

Finally, "I didn't break that promise."

"I saw you looking at me, Blaine. You are in love with me." Is it strange that Kurt is so sure of that? But a lot of things make more sense now, at least to him: how much Blaine wanted to have sex with him, for example, with an eagerness that went beyond mere lust or desire, but which sought a physical confirmation of his feelings.

"Yes, I am," Blaine admits, simply, without hesitation.

It could be so beautiful, so simple. But Kurt knows it never is. He's had clients...infatuated with him before, it happens, he even had one profess his undying love for him. It was a good thing Kurt didn't take him seriously, though, because he had been one of the first to throw metaphorical stones at him later when a few people in his village decided they didn't want him there.

It's never that simple when you're a whore. Clients may believe themselves in love, but whores may never, never fall in love with a client.

And though he isn't a whore anymore and Blaine was never his client, it doesn't really change anything.

He sits up, a little away from Blaine, and says, "It's not smart to fall in love with me."

Blaine smiles wryly. "In my experience, feelings generally don't care about smart. But if they did - the way we live, you and I might as well be the only people left in the world. So it is actually very smart to fall in love with you."

Kurt lies down again, on the edge of the bed, his back to Blaine. It doesn't work to discourage conversation, though.

"If you see it that way," Blaine says, quietly and vulnerably, "it would be smart of you to fall in love with me, too."

"I don't fall in love," Kurt says.

It may be a lie. But if it is, he's told it for so long he believes it himself.


	15. Chapter 15

**AS always, my thanks to voyageasia.**

It's not exactly awkward. It's not like they don't talk to each other; they do, but Kurt thinks it's only because otherwise they'd go mad. He's pretty sure that Blaine would rather talk to anyone else.

He is more hesitant, more quiet, and somehow sad. It's hard to bear, especially as Kurt knows he's the one who caused that sadness.

Sometimes, Blaine is his old self. They're talking, and it's like the sun is coming through clouds, and Kurt lives for those moments when it's like nothing happened.

And it devastates him when after a few seconds Blaine remembers and closes up again.

It's somehow worse than when Blaine didn't talk to him, back in the city. Because this time he knows what he's done, and he knows it's up to him to make it right.

But how can he? He can't say the words Blaine wants him to say. He just can't, because he only wants to say them, and Blaine would only want to hear them, if they are true. And he just doesn't know if they would be. He doesn't know what he's feeling - the closet he used to keep them in is, no surprise there, completely smashed by Blaine's confession, and his feelings tumble about, crowd up on him until he doesn't even know which is which.

He doesn't know how to handle this. He envies Blaine, who always seems to know exactly what he's feeling, who could say, "I'm in love with you" with complete certainty in his voice and in his eyes.

And maybe he could just say all of this to Blaine. That "I don't fall in love" is at least just as much of a lie as "I'm in love with you" would be. That it was wrong for him to say it.

He sits down on the ground behind the house and watches Blaine chopping wood. He flinches every time the axe comes down, feeling like every strike must be meant for him, and he wants to talk, he really does, but he can't find the words. He opens his mouth to start and then closes it again, and Blaine doesn't notice any of this.

Then Blaine puts the axe down and says,

"I think maybe it's time to go back and see how the girls are doing. We have our house, there's something to come back to, and the weather seems stable. There's a full moon in about a week, I think. If I leave tomorrow, I should be able to get there in time."

"I'm coming with you," Kurt says in a reflex. But even when he thinks about it - there's no way he's staying back. He couldn't bear staying behind, not knowing what's happening, worrying if Blaine's safe -

But Blaine shakes his head. "I want to go alone."

Suddenly, Kurt is terribly sad. Given Blaine's reaction when he couldn't find him when he had run off, him wanting to be alone now is...it's more than Kurt can bear.

His voice sounds dead as he says, "I know. I'm still not letting you go on your own."

It takes an effort to lift his head enough to meet Blaine's eyes. Kurt is close to tears, and he can see that Blaine is fighting them, too. He looks away quickly.

"I know it's hard for you to...bear my company. But you must see that it would be plainly stupid to go alone. There's at least five days of traveling between here and the next human being, that is if you don't lose your way. Did you pay close attention to where we were going when we were coming here? I didn't. I could find my way back, but it might take an extra day or two of looking for the right direction. And then, say, you fall and break your leg. Or something bites you. You could starve before anyone finds you. And if you reach the city -well, they might actually try to kill you when you get there."

He shakes his head and swallows down the tears that still threaten to rise. His voice sounds thin and fragile as he continues,

"I fear so much for the girls. You know what they did to me when I started to get...inconvenient. I try very hard to believe that they were right when they said they could handle it, that nothing bad has happened to them. I couldn't...I couldn't bear staying here and wondering if you were dead, or lying somewhere injured, or ….tortured by Administration. I know I hurt you. But you can't do that to me. Please. Let me go with you."

To Kurt's endless relief, Blaine nods slowly, eyes swimming with tears.

"I know," he says. "I've known all along that I can't go alone. It's just so...so hard to be around you right now."

He starts crying in earnest, and Kurt's heart does a weird little jump. He reaches out towards Blaine.

"Will you...won't you please let me hold you?"

Blaine shakes his head, but a moment later, he's on the floor, throwing his arms around Kurt's neck and sobbing into his shoulder.

Kurt holds him tight and whispers into his ear, things he's not even sure Blaine hears above his sobbing, things that aren't supposed to mean anything, just to soothe. But the words take on a life of their own, and he says more than he wants.

"I can't tell you what you want to hear. But that doesn't mean you don't mean anything to me. You're the most important person in my life, and that's not just because there aren't a lot of other people around."

He laughs a little and strokes Blaine's back. The sobbing has stopped, and Blaine is burying his head in Kurt's shoulder, but Kurt has the impression he is listening intently. He has to force himself to continue; he guards his feelings so carefully usually that it's hard for him to admit he's feeling anything even to himself, let alone talk about it. But he knows Blaine needs to hear this - and maybe, he thinks, so does he.

"I - I do love you," he says, and the words sound at once completely wrong and completely right. It's an eternity since he last said these words to anyone, he can't even remember. But who better to say them to than Blaine?

"I just can't tell you I'm in love with you, because I don't know how to be in love. But you...you got me to think of us as...as a sort of union. I've been on my own for so long, I can't even remember when I did care for anyone but myself, but you got me to wonder if the food will be enough for both of us, or if the bed will hold two. It's not much, maybe, but for me, it's...it's a lot. And it's something I have to get used to."

He feels ashamed. How can he give so little of himself when Blaine gives so much? How can he hold back when the both of them are practically the only people left? But he's told the truth; even now he often feels like he's drowning.

"I've...never felt as much for anyone as I do for you. And I'm scared. Sometimes...I feel like I'm so full of you there's hardly any room left for myself."

Only when Blaine's hand comes up to wipe away his tears he realizes he's crying. Blaine presses their wet faces together, and Kurt can feel him smiling.

"That was the most beautiful declaration of love I've ever heard," he says.

Kurt shakes his head, wants to retract, wants to explain that no, this isn't what he meant, but Blaine smiles at him before he brings himself to say it.

"I know," he says. "I know. But it's more than I hoped for. And it's enough."

* * *

They hold each other for what seems a long time, sniffling occasionally, but Kurt starts to feel things are good again. He presses a kiss beneath Blaine's ear.

"Are we still leaving tomorrow?" he asks.

Blaine sits away a little and drags his hands over his face. It rather makes matters worse; his hands are dirty from working, and now the dirt mixes with the tears on his face and leaves little streaks on his cheeks. It makes Kurt smile.

Blaine nods. "It wasn't only... to get away from you." He says it softly, with a squeeze of Kurt's hand, and yet Kurt flinches.

"I'm just as worried about the girls as you are, and I want to know what's happening. And maybe...we can offer them something to come here for."

He looks around, at their house, at the pile of firewood, at their attempt of a garden.

"It's not much, but it's something. There's room; we can build more houses. Maybe...maybe they'll come."

* * *

They go to bed early. Kurt lies awake for some time, his eyes open, his thoughts occupied. He and Blaine are good, he thinks; they've managed to go back to normal fairly quickly, and they've kissed a lot in between packing their things and preparing the house for their absence. Still, he feels guilty. He wants to do something for Blaine, something to assure him of his...affection. Only one thing comes to mind though, and he's not ready for it, doesn't know if he'll ever be ready for it. He fears physical pain and emotional vulnerability; he doesn't think he could bear being even more vulnerable with Blaine than he already is, and yet he knows it would happen. Besides, and he tells himself that this is a real reason instead of an excuse, the timing is bad: from tomorrow on, they'll be traveling, and he'd at least like to be comfortable, and tonight, they have to sleep if they want to make an early start tomorrow.

Only he isn't sleeping.

So he lies there feeling guilty for a time, but the quiet sounds Blaine makes in his sleep are calming.

Blaine is lying on his side, facing away from Kurt. It isn't a rejection, but just the way they sleep, and he looks cozy and inviting to Kurt. So he scoots closer and lets himself rest against Blaine's back, putting an arm around him. They often lie this way. For Kurt, it's the only way sometimes to give Blaine the physical closeness he needs without feeling trapped himself. Spooning Blaine like this, Kurt feels he can get away whenever he needs to; and he often does, pulling away as soon as he's sure Blaine's asleep.

Now though, Blaine stirs in his sleep and takes Kurt's hand in his and presses it to his chest. And even when his grip goes limp again, Kurt leaves his hand there, between Blaine's chest and his hand, their finger entwined, and doesn't feel trapped.

In the morning, they leave.


	16. Chapter 16

**Thanks as always to my beta. voyageasia!**

It's hard, actually, to leave behind all that is theirs to go back to the city. Kurt worries, he can't help it. He wonders if the house will withstand a storm - they've been spared up till now, but the wind here can still become pretty strong. Well, but if the house will go down, it's probably better if they're not in it when it happens.

He insists on being the one to climb up to the roof to cover the hole they call a chimney, and when he's down again, he lingers, standing there and looking at what little they have been able to build in the short time they've been here.

Blaine tugs on his sleeve. "Come on. It'll all still be here when we come back."

Kurt sighs, but lets himself be turned around and drawn away.

"I hope so," he whispers.

It's hard to get his feet to moving. This is the first place, he realizes, he has dared to call home for a long time, and to leave it now, not certain if it'll still be there to come back to, not certain if they'll be around to come back to it...He keeps turning around to look at it, their small, crooked house, until it disappears behind a hill.

They walk, again. It's easy to get back into the rhythm of it; Kurt's done a lot of walking recently. What's not easy is talking to Blaine. There's still too much between them, too much that needs to be said, or shouldn't be said, and how is he supposed to talk about his feelings when he really doesn't know what he's feeling?

They don't talk much during the journey, never have, so the awkwardness becomes apparent only when they stop for the night. They try to act around it, smile at each other often, but for Kurt at least it's a relief when they settle down to sleep. After a short hesitation, he slips behind Blaine, putting his arm around him like he always does when they're sleeping. Blaine nuzzles into him a little but doesn't take his hand. Somehow, that makes Kurt sad.

The awkwardness is gone the next morning when they awake and groan, not used anymore to sleeping on the ground. They stretch their aching limbs and complain, and then laugh, and talk easily during breakfast. And even though Kurt's neck feels like he may never be able to lift his head again, he feels good.

They walk. They find their way, not always easily, not always peacefully. There's some arguing about which direction is better, and often they mark trees or rocks for something to come back to and start again from if the way they pick should be wrong. They grip each others' hands tightly, especially when they come to the place where Kurt ran off; they don't want to lose each other and be left to try and find their way alone.

He doesn't want to lose Blaine.

One evening, it's the third or fourth day of their journey, they sit by the fire after dinner.

"Do we...have a plan?" Kurt asks. It's been Blaine's scheme, this whole thing, and Kurt hopes he has thought about it a little more than just, "Hey let's go see the girls."

Blaine looks up to the sky. The moon has just come out. It's not full yet, there's a few more days to go.

"Two or three days, do you think?" Blaine asks, and Kurt nods.

"Do you think we'll get there in time?"

"We should. I think we're pretty close already."

It's hard to tell, really. Due to the wind, the landscape is constantly changing; it's hard to recognize anything. But they know they're roughly walking into the right direction, so Blaine is hopefully right.

"So," Blaine continues. "We get there, we hide in case they still want to kill us, and when there's a full moon, we go to the North gate - which should be the one we arrive at anyway - and we hope the girls are still waiting for us." He frowns. "How long have we been away?"

Kurt shrugs. Neither of them have thought to count the days, and the weather is still too weird to tell what month or even what season it is.

"Not so long, I think," he says uncertainly. They fled, they went to the place where they live now. It took longer the first time; that he remembers clearly. They built their house, which took also longer than expected, even not counting Blaine's injury. Two months? Three? He has no idea, and he also doesn't know how many nights the girls will wait at the gate before they give it up as hopeless.

He hopes they'll be there.

There's a storm that night, and they spend it huddled miserably on the ground, covering their faces with their clothes, seeking whatever protection a fallen tree and a few rocks have to offer.

Kurt gets angry at no one; inside him, there's just as much of a storm raging as outside, and equally chaotic and directed at nothing. It just seems to him that whenever he builds some sort of a world around him that he can bear to live in, something or someone always takes care to remind him not to get too comfortable. And he's tired of it.

It's completely futile, though, and the next morning, he's glad he could only fume in silence because opening his mouth would have meant having it full of sand in seconds. Yelling out his anger would have achieved nothing, and Blaine does not need to know every one of his bad sides.

In the end, they arrive at the city's outskirts earlier then he thought, earlier then he's ready. He wouldn't have minded a few more days of walking with Blaine, even though it's been uncomfortable, sometimes dangerous and often boring. But he prefers it to not knowing what to expect, if anyone will be waiting for them, if Administration still wants to kill them.

And for the first time, he allows himself to think about the fact that in a few days, they may well be dead. They ventured out on a whim, more or less, the result of a quarrel and weeks-long worry about the girls, but didn't talk about it much, never planned anything. They have never talked about the fact that this might get them killed; if it wouldn't be better to stay at home, in their well-earned safe little haven, and leave the girls to their fate.

He is afraid. Terrified. A few times he's about to ask Blaine to turn around, go back to their peaceful little house, leave the girls alone and let the city stand or fall how it wills. A few times, he's about to just turn around and run, without asking anything.

Always, something holds him back. It's worry for the girls, the need to know how they fare, if they are still alive. It's plain curiosity, the need to know how things are in the city. It's loneliness; even with Blaine, he longs for more people to join them.

And it's Blaine, who Kurt knows is just as scared as himself, but who sets his jaw and turns his eyes towards their goal and starts walking faster whenever the fear threatens to overwhelm him.

Kurt can't run away when he has that to follow.

But he has the feeling they haven't really thought this through.

They are so early that there are still one or two days until full moon, so they make camp in the small forest that is only two or so hours from the city, but where they hopefully won't be seen. They don't talk. Kurt thinks it's because they both are so scared that the other one voicing their fear would make them break down completely. At least it's like this for Kurt. He knows Blaine is scared, can see it in his eyes, in the way he moves, but if he actually heard him say it, it could be the last straw.

He thinks the waiting may kill him.

They settle down to sleep. It's early, but there's nothing else to do, and sleeping will at least make the time go by faster.

As Kurt takes his accustomed place behind Blaine on their pallet and puts his arm around him, Blaine presses back into him. Kurt is startled. They haven't as much as kissed since they left; he'd assumed Blaine wouldn't want to anymore now that the...disparities in their feelings for each other are revealed. He doesn't push back, doesn't move at all. He's not sure Blaine isn't just trying to get more comfortable, and he won't risk rejection. He's not sure he could face that now.

But Blaine turns around and starts kissing Kurt's neck, his lips warm and familiar, his hands sure on Kurt's skin, under his clothes. And there's no doubt at all as to what's pressing against Kurt's leg. His own arms come around Blaine of their own volition, and his hands push under Blaine's shirt. They touch slowly, but there's urgency behind it; Kurt feels it in Blaine's touch and in his breathing as well as his own. There's the awareness that this might be their last time, a farewell, that tomorrow, it could be over. He feels a sob rise in his throat, and quickly he turns it into a moan as he seeks Blaine's lips with his own. He is not sure he succeeds, though, as Blaine kisses back almost desperately, his hands digging painfully into Kurt's hips.

They kiss for a long time, their hands roaming aimlessly over each others' bodies, their breaths coming in increasingly hard pants.

Finally, Blaine takes Kurt's hand, guides it to his ass, to his hole.

"Please," he whispers. "Please, I need..."

"Um," Kurt says. "I forgot...I didn't pack..." After all, he'd assumed Blaine wouldn't want to. He hadn't allowed himself any feelings about this, but now...even if Blaine only wants it as a last celebration of life, so to speak...he'll take it, take what he can get, and be glad about it.

"I did," Blaine says, and scrambles away from under Kurt to get the oil out of his backpack. He presses the bottle into Kurt's hand, and as he looks at it, he has to laugh. Blaine laughs with him for a moment, and the tension dissolves a little, but soon Blaine's lips are back on his, and he touches the bottle in Kurt's hand.

"Please," he repeats, whispering into Kurt's mouth. "I need you."

So Kurt slicks up his fingers. He knows Blaine won't have the patience for a thorough preparation, and briefly wonders if he will ever have the chance to make love to Blaine like he wants to, drawn-out, gentle, without urgency or impatience. Then he pushes two fingers into Blaine and latches his lips on his nipple.

Blaine arches from the ground and pants, "Please, now. Now. I want to feel you."

Yes, but you still need to be able to walk tomorrow, Kurt thinks, and then firmly brings his thoughts back to the task at hand. He doesn't want to think of tomorrow, not yet. So he slicks himself up and gently pushes into Blaine, holding his breath in his efforts to hear every sound Blaine makes. He goes slow, but he doesn't fear to hurt Blaine this time; they fit well, they fuck well, he knows that now. But he wants to feel every inch, wants to see every reaction on Blaine's face in the flickering light of their little fire. So he moves slowly, intent on not missing anything, until Blaine presses his nails into Kurt's back and his feet into his ass, urging him on.

At some point, Blaine starts calling his name again, and Kurt finds he loves it. He himself is more quiet, but he answers with a moaned "Blaine" when his orgasm takes him.

Blaine looks at him that way again. the way that leaves no doubt that he loves him. It makes him feel wonderful, but also guilty. He wants to be able to look back the same way, tell Blaine he loves him and that everything will be fine. They might well be dead tomorrow, who cares if it's true? If it made Blaine happy? But something holds him back, and in the end, all he says is,

"I'm sorry."

Blaine looks at him, smiles, and shakes his head. "If this is my last day, then I'm spending it with the person I love most," he says, doing nothing to alleviate Kurt's guilt. "There's nothing to be sorry for."

The next day, they spend mostly in silence. They've said their goodbyes, so to speak, if goodbyes are necessary. Now, they wait.

When at long last the moon rises and they see that it's full, they nod at each other. Their backpacks and everything else they've been carrying except for Blaine's gun is hidden in the woods; either they'll get it on the way back or they won't need it anymore. They take each others' hands and walk towards the faint, distant lights toward the city.

At the gate, they wait for what feels like a long time. More then once, Kurt begins to speak, to say that they're too late, that the girls have given up waiting for them, that they should turn back and go home, but he doesn't. He can't. Now that he's standing at the wall that surrounds the place that had him beaten up, starved and nearly raped, he knows he can't just leave again without knowing the girls are well. Without at least trying to get them to come with them. He knows Blaine feels the same, and he knows they'll stay here the whole night and come back tomorrow and the night after, as long as they can make the moon look full in their minds.

They don't have to wait that long. After not even a few hours, though it feels like an eternity, the small gate slowly opens, and two figures walk out, looking around cautiously. Kurt feels Blaine's hand clench and squeezes back hard. It takes a while until they recognize Santana and Brittany, walking hand in hand like them, and Kurt briefly wonders what their relationship is, if Brittany's emotions are as conflicted as his own. He doubts it.

Brittany squeals when she sees them, and Santana quickly puts a hand over her mouth. She is grinning widely, but the caution never leaves her as she moves towards them and hugs them tight.

"You have to leave, quickly," she whispers, but holds them as if she never wants to let them go.

"I'm sorry. The risk is too high. Rachel -"

She is interrupted by a bang; the little gate has been slammed shut. All of them turn towards the figure standing before it; Kurt can only see his silhouette.

He is aiming a gun at them, and he says,

"I can't believe you were stupid enough to come back,"


	17. Chapter 17

**Thanks as always to my beta, Voyageasia!**

The man is wearing a Streetsweeper uniform, and Kurt vaguely remembers seeing him patrolling or guarding the wall, but he's never had anything to do with him. He can't believe this is happening, although it seems they have really been incredibly stupid to come back here. They should have stayed away, they should have -

Santana whistles, a long, loud, piercing sound, and the man quickly slaps her across the face. Then he steps behind them and points the gun at them again.

"Let's go," he says, herding them towards the gate.

Blaine surreptitiously tries to get his own gun, but Santana shakes her head. She holds a rag against her split lip, but she is grinning, a fierce, a little painful grin that scares Kurt nearly as much as the gun pointed at them.

They are marched through the gate, and Kurt clutches Blaine's hand but doesn't dare look at him. He keeps waiting for something to happen, something to justify that neither Brittany nor Santana look particularly scared. But nobody stops them; the few people about on the streets stare at them for a moment and then quickly move on; two even start running.

They seem subdued. More so than before; and more, they seem scared of the Streetsweeper. Or him. He can't say, not from three minutes and about seven people, and to be honest, he doesn't really care. Not when he's about to be marched wherever, probably to Administration to be tortured or killed or whatever, and he wishes, wishes they had never left their little crooked house.

"Hey, Jesse!" A voice calls, and the Streetsweeper stops and turns towards the voice, and Kurt turns with him.

It's Puck. Hope surges through Kurt, quickly and irrepressible, though he tells himself there's no guaranty Puck's on their side. Do they have a side anybody could join? Have Santana, Brittany and Rachel managed to talk to people? Speaking of, where is -?

"Good work," Puck says, and Kurt's heart sinks. "I can take them from here. I know you've been hanging out at that gate for hours, you must be beat."

"That'd be great, thanks," the man - Jesse? says, and roughly pushes them over to Puck. Kurt looks at him pleadingly, there must be something he can do, they were friends, almost...But Puck looks away, grabs Blaine and takes his gun, and Kurt is close to...crying, screaming, kicking him and trying to get away, but Santana catches his eye and shakes her head, a miniscule movement.

"I'll get them right to Administration," Puck promises, and the other man nods and turns away, but then turns back.

"Now that I think about it," he says, "I think I'm going to take this one for a little detour."

He takes Blaine's arm and pulls him away with him. Blaine doesn't fight, but looks at Kurt helplessly, Kurt involuntarily takes a step towards him, but Puck takes his arm and stops him.

"Some of the other guys have a score to settle with him," Jesse says. "I'll bring him around when they're done with him."

He turns to leave, dragging Blaine with him, and Kurt can't stop himself.

"No! Blaine!" he yells, struggling against Puck's hold on him, but Puck just shifts his grasp and puts one rough hand over Kurt's mouth. Blaine looks back at him, eyes full of fear and love and goodbye, and Kurt watches helplessly as he is pulled away.

"Quickly," Puck says. "Before he gets the idea he wants you too."

They walk quickly towards Kurt's old cabin, Kurt struggling all the way and Puck just dragging him along. Santana and Brittany walk without resistance, though now, Brittany looks scared and Santana angry.

They go into the cabin, and Puck quickly closes the door behind them. He even bolts it; the bolt is new, Kurt never had one when he still lived here.

Kurt sinks down on the cot. He is aware that everything is not as it seems; whatever Puck plans to do with them, this is not Administration.

"What's going on?" he asks. "Blaine -"

"We can't help him now," Puck interrupts. "But it won't be that bad, I hope. A lot of the Streetsweepers are on our side. And they can't kill him; Administration wants you alive."

"Our side?" Kurt asks tiredly.

"You've made an impression, and we've continued your work. Only we're much better at it," Brittany says. "It's a whole movement now, and Administration doesn't even suspect anything."

"Things are...well, not quite bad," Santana adds. "But worse than before. We think they just want the power, that's why they try to keep people from leaving. They've upped the privileges for Administration and Streetsweepers. Single rooms, more food, that kind of thing."

"It's pissed a lot of people off," Puck says. "And some of the Streetsweepers think it's not right, either. A lot of us want to leave, only...we kind of wanted to wait to see if you came back. People are scared, and they're not sure if..."

"If you can survive outside," Kurt says. "I understand. For the record, it's possible. It won't be easy, especially with a lot of people coming, but you should be able to make it." They'll help, he wants to add, Blaine and he, only he can't, he doesn't know if Blaine -

"We had this whole plan," Santana says. "Would have worked, too, but for Rachel."

"Where is she?" Kurt asks. "Is she okay?"

Santana smiles bitterly. "The guy who caught us, Jesse? Rachel was sleeping with him. Fancied herself in love, and though all of us told her it wouldn't work, she thought she could persuade him to join us. And at some point, she must have told him when and where you would be if you were coming."

"He's been standing at that gate every night for a week," Puck says. "So I made sure to be close in case Santana couldn't warn you in time. I just didn't think he'd take Blaine. I couldn't think of a way to stop him without blowing our cover."

"Where -" Kurt's voice gives out, so he clears his throat and starts again. "Where is he taking him?"

"To jail," Puck says, and Kurt frowns.

"There's a jail now?" he asks. There wasn't one before, just a cellar of one of the bigger houses where people could be locked for a night or two. He remembers some guys who stole food spending a week there, but that was it.

"They built it shortly after you left. It's - people used to sleep there, you know, and now they can't because - it's mostly those voicing their discontent too loudly that are locked up there. You'd have been there for sure. And...sometimes prisoners disappear."

"Disappear?" Kurt asks, his voice faint.

Puck nods. "It's something else that makes us want to leave. With the jail and the single rooms for Streetsweepers and Administration, the rest of us are stepping on each others' toes even more than before. And then there's fear that wasn't there before."

"So you've got your own room?" Kurt asks.

"Well yes, but I'm hardly ever alone there, if you know what I mean." Puck wriggles his eyebrows, and despite everything, Kurt has to grin.

"Actually, Puck wanted to give it up and room with us," Santana adds, "but we decided against it. It could look suspicious, and we never know when it might come in handy to have an extra room."

Someone knocks on the door. Santana, Brittany and Puck share glances, then Puck rises, goes to the door and opens it a crack. Someone is crying loudly, and with an exasperated sigh, Puck opens the door wider.

"You have some nerve coming here!" Santana says, walking towards the door. Rachel stands there, her face red and bloated from crying. She walks past Santana to Kurt and hugs him, burying her face in his shoulder as if he should comfort her.

Not sure what he's feeling, Kurt hugs back. He's glad to see her, sure, he's glad all of them are alive and more or less alright. But fear for Blaine eats at him, and if Rachel's the one to blame for this...

"I'm so, so sorry," she sobs. "I saw them, Jesse and Blaine, on my way here. I never imagined...I was sure he..."

"Yes, you were sure he's the love of your life and not just some self-satisfied prick who's way too fond of the privileges he gets from bullying people," Santana says, but she sits down again and doesn't look quite as much as if she wants to murder Rachel.

For a moment, Rachel looks as if she wants to argue, but seems to think better of it.

"I know where he is," she offers quietly. "If that helps."

"Where is he?" Kurt asks, rising. He's going mad here, he can't just sit around and talk if Blaine might...if he might...

"Sit down, Kurt," Puck says. "You can't do anything yet. If you barge in there now, without a plan, people might die. Blaine might die."

Kurt sits down again hesitantly. He has to admit Puck is right, but he doesn't want to. He feels like he has never been so scared in his life. It's probably not true; he's been scared a lot of times, but not like this. He fears for his life, even though it's not even his life that is threatened, but he feels like if they kill Blaine they might just as well kill him too. He can't imagine going back..._home _without him. So, he tells himself, he'll try anything to free Blaine, and if he fails, if Blaine dies, he'll go and kill as many of them as he can before they kill him.

He feels better after this resolution, in a grim, determined kind of way.

He sits up. "Tell me everything I need to know. Why did Jesse take Blaine? What are they going to do to him?"

"My guess is that it's because he used to be a Streetsweeper," Puck says. "Some of the guys feel like he has betrayed them, and they want to...get back at him, I guess. For - for changing sides. I think they're going to beat him up."

The sob Kurt hears comes from Rachel, not from himself. It doesn't surprise him; his insides feel too dried up for sobs. It's fine, though. He'll start feeling again when he's back with Blaine.

"So what do we do?" he asks. His voice is cool, businesslike, and he hardly hears it.

Nobody says anything; they don't seem to have an idea now their original plan is thwarted. Then Santana speaks into the silence.

"Start a riot."

Silence again, this time unbelieving. No one is even sure that Santana means what she says.

"Think about it," she urges. "We'll never get out of here any other way. It's nearly morning, we can't steal away at night like we planned, and we can't wait until tomorrow night. Administration will certainly know you're here by then, even if they don't know yet because Jesse insisted on his unofficial bit of fun with Blaine."

"I don't think anybody knows yet," Puck throws in. "They'd be here if they did. But - you can't really mean to -"

"So," Santana continues as if he hadn't spoken at all. "We have to get out of here today, and we have to get Blaine first. How many of the Streetsweepers are on our side?"

"About a third," Puck says, and Kurt is impressed. They haven't been idle in his absence.

"Good, so the beating won't be too bad. With some luck, he'll still be able to walk," Santana says matter-of-factly. Rachel sobs again. Kurt has trouble breathing.

"So, we alert everyone. We march to the jail, we start throwing stones, breaking stuff. The Streetsweepers come outside to see what's happening. Hopefully, our Streetsweepers inside take it as a signal to free Blaine if they haven't already and then join us. It should be quick. We have Blaine, we leave."

"It will be incredibly dangerous, There will be fighting, people could be hurt or killed," Puck objects.

"From what you told me," Kurt says, "Everything you've done the last few months has been dangerous, and people have been hurt or killed. And I don't think things will get better, do you? Anyway, while you still have the choice to stay if you want to, I can't, and Blaine can't. I have to free him, and then we have to leave, any way possible. Alone if necessary, but I would be grateful to have you at my side."

"No one here wants to stay," Santana assures him. "And all of us have made up our minds that we'll do anything that's necessary. Although...Rachel?" She eyes her suspiciously. Rachel nods, eyes cast down but determined.

"I'm in," she says.

Brittany speaks up. "Those who won't or can't fight can pack things we'll need. Food, tools, clothes, um, salt..."

"Oil," Kurt adds and blushes in the darkness.

They look at Puck, who looks pensive. It takes some time, but finally he nods. "Okay."

He rises and gestures at them as they still stare at him, sitting. "No time like the present. Time is of the essence."

They go start a riot.


	18. Chapter 18

**As always, thanks to my beta, voyageasia!**

It turns out that starting a riot is slow work.

Much too slow for Kurt, who wants to run and yell and throw things; his only thought, the only driving instinct behind everything, is Blaine, and he needs to get to him fast, who knows what he's suffering in the meantime?

But no, they walk through the city, not too fast because they need to be quiet, not too slowly either because they need to avoid being seen. On the way, they gather stones.

"The people who want to stay," Puck explains in a whisper," thankfully, they aren't against us. More food, more room for them when we're gone. So just try not to alert any Streetsweepers, that would be really bad right now."

Kurt doesn't have to be told that. He's so scared he's surprised he's even moving, but the need to free Blaine and get out of here has overridden everything else he might be feeling.

They knock on doors, not all of them but only specific ones the others seem to just have memorized. There's a fair few of them, though, and it seems to take an eternity every time to wake the people and talk to them, not all of them either. In a whisper, Puck or Brittany or Santana explain what's happening, calm people and divide them into those who'll meet them at the jail and those who'll stay and pack, scavenge or beg for anything they'll need and meet them at the gate later.

Then they're at the next house and the next, while Kurt stands awkwardly by and tries not to appear too impatient. He draws quite a few looks, people remember him, but fortunately nobody really pays attention to him; there's too much to be talked about and too little time to do it.

Finally, they arrive at the jail. It's one of the bigger houses, it must have been a warehouse or something once. Kurt remembers it as one of the places where a lot of people slept, in cots with spaces for personal belongings around them and sometimes curtains for a little bit of privacy. Iron bars have been added to the windows, and Puck tells him that makeshift walls have been added for cells and guardrooms. The Streetsweeper's quarters are in an adjacent building, which has also been commandeered and restructured so that they could have their tiny, but still single rooms.

A lot of people used to sleep in these two buildings, and Kurt wonders how they fare now with them gone.

He can't ask, though; this is no time for talking. They hide in the shadows while they wait so as to stay out of sight of the Streetsweepers standing guard outside the jail. The wait seems impossibly long. Kurt knows people have to get ready and say their goodbyes and get over the fact that they have been called out of their beds to join a riot, and that the night after this, one way or another, they won't be here anymore. It doesn't stop him from being impatient.

People trickle in, slowly, carrying makeshift weapons and their belongings; they don't trust those to the others who will wait for them by the gate. Kurt can understand that, they'll have to find a way to distribute everything they have, share it evenly. They'll have too little for some of them to keep more than they need.

But that's a problem for later. The weapons are more immediate, and they scare Kurt as much as they reassure him. They are not entirely helpless; they don't have to depend solely on the guns of "their" Streetsweepers. Kurt isn't sure how much effect their axes and butcher knives and bats will have against the guns of the Streetsweepers, but he still likes to see the people prepared to fight. At the same time, he hates it. Until now, he hasn't quite realized that today, possibly starting in a few minutes, there will be fighting. People will be hurt, maybe killed. Because of something he started. Oh, he doesn't delude himself that without him, everything would stay peaceful forever. The situation here is bad, sooner or later people would want out. Still. he already feels to blame for everything, although it hasn't even started yet.

It will soon, though. More and more people gather on the street in front of the jail, too many to still hide in the shadows. The Streetsweepers on guard start to look suspicious, turning back to the street every few seconds. Two share glances, and then confer in a low voice while they watch them.

Santana and Puck nod at each other, and then Santana throws the first stone. It crashes into a window; there is a rather anticlimactic hole in the middle, but the sound is satisfying and certainly loud enough. The heads of the Streetsweepers whip around, and they stare open-mouthed, unbelieving at the broken window. Kurt knows they have no way here to replace glass; it's already the first painful loss.

The Streetsweepers don't stare for long. After just a second, they start shouting and then running towards them, waving their guns threateningly. They throw stones at them, and one of them drops his gun to shield his face with his arms. A young man, one of the rebels who is particularly bold or particularly stupid or both, runs, picks up the gun and runs back. A stone hits him in the shoulder, but he makes it back safely, and they cheer him as he triumphantly rises the gun into the air.

And then it stops. The Streetsweepers yell at them to stop throwing stones, and Puck makes a halting gesture that most people actually heed.

One of the Streetsweepers steps before them. It's no one Kurt has seen before; he's probably one of those who joined after the advantages of being one became more apparent.

"What do you want?" the man asks. They seem to have figured out enough to not have to ask why they are doing this - but, Kurt guesses, as far as rebellions go, this one is pretty straightforward.

He shares a look with Santana and Puck. Astonishingly, no one has thought of negotiating, and so he quickly steps closer to them while Puck signals the Streetsweeper to wait.

"Don't tell them about Blaine yet," he whispers quickly, urgently; Administration probably still doesn't know they're here, as Jesse taking Blaine to the jail was highly unofficial, but if they make releasing Blaine one of their demands, they will. They might kill him, or use him to get Kurt to surrender. They will have to rely on the Streetsweepers inside to free him and bring him with them.

Santana nods, having come to the same conclusion.  
"We want to leave the city," she tells the guard. "All of us here, we want to be free to leave today and take our belonging with us."

"Leave?" the Streetsweeper asks. "You know you can't survive out there. There's radiation, and the wind is still too strong." He sounds patronizing, like that's something they just forgot.

Kurt longs to just step forward, and in fact Rachel nudges him to do exactly that. He reckons he's famous enough by now that his presence here is enough to disprove the guard's words. But he doesn't dare. He'd rather keep his presence here a secret as long as possible to keep Administration from looking for Blaine. He takes a step back, behind Puck, as Santana glares at the Streetsweeper.

"Well, that doesn't make a difference to you, does it?" she says. "You don't have to care if we die out there. Think about it. When we're gone, there's more food for you, and those annoying discontent troublemakers will be gone, so it's less work. You can only win."

"We can't decide that, we'll have to ask Administration," the guard says, but Kurt can see he's already imagining the life Santana has painted for him. Maybe, he thinks, maybe there's hope for us to be able to leave without bloodshed.

"You have one hour," Santana says, and for a wonder, the guard nods, turns and speaks to the others. All but three resume their posts at the jail, two walk crisply towards where Kurt assumes Administration is housed; for all the limited space in the city, he has never been able to find out where exactly that is. The third goes inside the jail, probably in order to inform the Streetsweepers there about what is happening.

Everything is quiet. It's the calm before the storm, Kurt knows; one way or another, everything will change in one hour. But for now...they wait.

He hates it. He paces, four paces in one direction, four back until Santana stops him with a firm hand on his shoulder. He thinks about Blaine. Does he know he's coming for him? Does he have hope? Or is he sitting inside in some cell, battered and bruised, thinking his death is only a matter of time? The Streetsweepers inside, "their" Streetsweepers, do they know? They must have some idea, and now someone has gone to tell them...will they free Blaine? What is happening?

He starts pacing again, and as he does, he notices he's not the only one restless. The people, those who want to follow them outside, they are standing still, but Kurt can see they're taut like a bow string, ready to be let loose. Puck is keeping them in check right now, only letting a few across the invisible line they've drawn between them and the no man's land across which are the jail and the Streetsweepers, to collect the stones they've thrown in case they need them again. The guards look like they want to stop them, but no one moves; as long as none of the stones are thrown again, no one will.

But Kurt is scared. He has been so scared the whole time he's surprised he even notices when another fear joins the ones already boiling inside him, but he does. He's seen twice what people are capable of in the wrong circumstances, once on the way here and once during the famine; he knows, if just the slightest bit goes wrong today, he'll see it again.

And it does go wrong. He can see it in the faces of the Streetsweepers as they return; everyone else can see it too. Administration has not granted their request.

The leader of the Streetsweepers steps before Santana. Much as he despises him, Kurt has to give him credit that he doesn't seem afraid of her, even now, which is something Kurt doesn't always manage.

"They won't allow it," he says.

"Why?" Santana asks, as if it matters.

"They won't subject their children to the dangers outside."

"Their children," Santana says. "And what treatment do they propose if their 'children' act against their will?"

"You are to be imprisoned or, failing that, killed," the guard says. He doesn't even have the decency to sound embarrassed about it.

"That's certainly a way to treat your children," Santana says sarcastically, and then, at lightning speed, she charges, grabs the Streetsweeper's gun, uses its hilt to push him in the stomach, away form them, and as he stumbles and holds his middle and tries to get back his bearings, she rises the gun into the air and shouts,

"Go!"

And they go. Kurt watches as they throw stones and run forward, tackling Streetsweepers who are still too stunned to react quickly. A few fall to the ground, and Kurt can't and also desperately doesn't want to see what happens to them once they've fallen. All too soon, the first gunshots rip through the air. On both sides, people duck, and fall, and Kurt stands and watches horrified and feels unable to do anything. Streetsweepers come out of the jail. They join the fight in a surprisingly orderly fashion that has nothing in common with the way most of the others are fighting, determined, desperate, though Puck does his best to keep them in some sort of order, shouting orders that some actually heed. One of the newly arrived is Jesse, and Kurt's stomach coils at the sight of him. Rachel beside him makes a disgusted sound, chooses one of the biggest stones she has and throws it, unerringly at his groin.

Kurt doesn't watch to see if it hits. People are trying to overthrow the Streetsweepers guarding the jail, and he runs to join them, ignoring Santana shouting his name. If he can get Blaine out, and anyone else who might be imprisoned, and get their Streetsweepers to finally join them, all they have to do is fight their way to the gate and out of it. They can't follow them; they'll lose the last of their credibility if they do.

He runs, jumps over people on the ground, tries not to think about why they're there. He needs to get Blaine, and now that he has even the slightest bit of a chance, nothing will stop him.

Somehow, he doesn't know, doesn't care how, he makes it inside. Here, it's no less of a chaos than outside. The fighting is different, though, more effective, less grappling and shoving and more direct disarming people and rendering them harmless or at times unconscious. It's Streetsweeper against Streetsweeper, Kurt realizes, and while they are on different sides, most have no desire to kill those who used to work beside them.

He looks around frantically. He doesn't know anyone, doesn't know who's on his side, but apparently, some know him.

"Hey," a handsome blond Streetsweeper calls. Kurt turns toward him; the man seems to have a moment to breathe, as all his foes are engaged otherwise.

"You're Kurt, aren't you?" the man says, and Kurt nods warily. The man tosses him a set of keys.

"Go get Blaine and the others," he says. "We'll try to finish here, so we can leave."

Somehow, in this mayhem, he finds Blaine. He stands in a cell, looking bruised but not too worse for wear, and seems relieved but not too surprised when he sees Kurt. They hug briefly, without words, then they go to free the three other inmates, of whom Kurt just has to hope they're there for political reasons and not for real crimes. He wants to ask Blaine everything, wants to tell him so much, but this is not the time; with them free, there's nothing to hold them here.

Back front, the fighting has all but stopped. "Their" Streetsweepers seem to be victorious, though it looks like it's mostly because the others have lost interest; it seems not all of them are intent on keeping them here. Some just don't care, and are willing to just let them go a long as they put on enough of a show so Administration won't get behind it.

Outside, there's still fighting, but once he sees Blaine, Puck starts shouting orders to retreat. It takes a while, but the Streetsweepers can convince their colleagues that the fight is over, and help organize a somewhat orderly retreat.

Soon, they're on two sides again, but this time, the no man's land between them is littered with people. Some are dead; no too many, thankfully, the Streetsweepers must have used their guns sparingly, either out of consideration for the lack of ammunition, or because they don't care enough to actually want to kill them. But quite a lot of people, Streetsweepers and rebels alike, are injured or unconscious, unable to walk in any case. Puck pats Blaine on the back and shakes hands with the blond Streetsweeper who gave Kurt the keys, then he gestures towards the injured.

"What about them? It would be best to leave them, but..."

Kurt understands. They'll face awful consequences if they're left behind but known rebels, and apart from that -

Santana looks up from where she's cradling Brittany's body.

"I'm not leaving her," she says fiercely. Tear stains mark her cheeks, but it doesn't make her look any less determined.

"No, of course we're taking her," Puck says impatiently. "She got a hit on the head, she'll be fine," he explains. "Once she wakes up."

"The others have friends and loved ones, too," Blaine says. His voice is hoarse, and he slurs a little, as he has trouble opening his mouth. "We take them with us."

"There are trees outside, we can make barrows," Kurt adds. "And maybe a few have brought carts."

So they carry the wounded. Their Streetsweepers cover them with their guns, but Kurt somehow doesn't think they'd be stopped even if they didn't. It's a weird atmosphere, now the fighting is over.

It's melancholic, it's a farewell. Despite everything, they have been through a lot together, and Kurt can see that now they're not fighting anymore, those staying are mourning those who leave.

At the gate, they meet those who packed things, and together, they raise a hand towards the city, in farewell.

Then the gate closes behind them.


	19. Chapter 19

Kurt cries when he sees their crooked little house. There were a few times since they left—a lot of times actually—that he thought he'd never come here again, that he'd never see it again.

The journey here took so long. He's not sure why, but what took two people one week to walk, takes so much longer when there's more of them. And they're a lot of people. At least as many as used to live in his village, he's not sure, doesn't care for numbers. They're enough for him to be thoroughly intimidated by the huge task that lies before them.

For now, though, he just stands there and sobs with relief. Arms come around him, and he leans into Blaine's embrace. They hold each other for a long moment as around them, the clearing slowly fills with people.

Santana puts her arms on each of their shoulders. "Your house is crooked," she says.

"Build a better one," Kurt says. He's tired, he wants to go home, light a fire and not come out for a week. But there's so, so much to do.

"What are we going to do? How are we to do this?" Santana asks. It's as close to desperate he's ever heard her, except for the first night of their journey when it didn't look like Brittany would ever wake up.

"We've come so far," Blaine says. The bruises on his face have paled to a sickly yellow, and it has stopped hurting when he breathes. At least that's what he's told Kurt. Still, Kurt can't help but worry, look for signs of pain in Blaine's face while they walk and call for a halt when he thinks it gets too much. But now they're here, now Blaine can rest. He'll make sure that he does.

He still thinks it's nothing short of a miracle they got everyone here alive. In the beginning, they'd walked with energy despite the wounded that had to be carried. They had been euphoric because of their victory, because they were free to go where they wanted to. Some had sung. Artie, the boy who had lost the use of his legs when a beam had fallen on them during one of the first great storms and had been riding on a cart ever since, had offered a ride on his lap to every pretty girl and the occasional boy. They had taken turns and fought playfully over the privilege, and Artie had flirted and kissed and groped anyone who was okay with it.

But after a few hours, people had fought for a ride because they were tired, and Artie had been too tired to grope them even a little. The singing had stopped and been replaced by complaining, and after a while, even the complaining had stopped.

There had been a storm, a bad one, one night as they slept unprotected in an open field. It had meant hours of fear and misery and mouths and other orifices full of the ever-present sand. At least there was nothing around that could fall on them, so no one died or got seriously injured. But the next morning, a few of them had wanted to go back, sure they couldn't survive out here. They had been able to persuade them to stay, but it had been a close call; they only changed their minds when reminded what would probably await them back in the city: imprisonment, or torture, or death.

And now they're here. All of them, uninjured for the most part except for one broken arm, a twisted ankle and millions of insect bites. And they realize that the biggest task is yet before them.

But they have come so far. And it's hardly midday, they have a lot of daylight left to work on at least temporary shelter for all of them.

"We just...get to work," he says in response to Santana's question. "One thing at a time."

"Get to work," Santana shouts, and they do. The Streetsweepers quickly and efficiently part them into groups, and Kurt distributes tasks. clearing the grounds, cleaning trees of branches, digging holes. He allows those of the injured who are still weak to lie down inside their house for a few hours. He wants Blaine to go with them, but he refuses vehemently, but after some discussion thankfully agrees to mainly oversee others' work. All of them have some building experience from the wall, but as to building a house out of wood, he and Kurt are the only ones who have actually done that. Except for, as it turn out, Artie, who used to be a builder's apprentice before, and while he can't work himself anymore, he is very useful directing others at their tasks, and determining what has to be done now and what later.

Still, they don't get very far that day. Or at least, they don't see much of their progress. By nightfall, they have cleared the ground and dug a lot of holes, put in a few pillars, but they haven't actually built anything. It's disheartening, though everyone goes to their sleeping pallets with a feeling of a day well spent.

But Kurt is impatient. As much as he had wanted company when it had been only him and Blaine, he's now had enough of it already and can't help but long for privacy. He doesn't go as far as to begrudge the injured ones the use of his bed, but...he has something to say. And something to do, and he has to do both before he loses courage, but he needs privacy. A few hours alone with Blaine, a fire, and a bed—is that so much to ask?

For now, it is. And so Kurt waits. But he doesn't forget his plans, just as he doesn't forget the way he had worried and fretted and obsessed back in the city when Blaine was taken, how he hadn't been able to think of anything but Blaine, how he had sworn to die if Blaine did. That means something, even he knows that.

They work every day from dusk till dawn, toiling until there is actually something like a village rising around their crooked little house. Most have kind of adopted their living arrangements from the city, building together with those who used to be their roommates. Even Santana and Brittany haven't said anything about living without Rachel, although their relationship is still somewhat strained. They also build a bigger house which is to serve as a group house for now, for the Streetsweepers who lived alone but don't want to anymore, and anyone else who wants to live there. Kurt is glad there are some besides the Streetsweepers, he doesn't want barracks or anything that remains form the city's system. They'll see if they need something like a police force later, when they've settled some. But somehow, they find a way to house everyone, not necessarily very comfortably, but by the time the nights get really cold, everyone has a bed and a roof over their heads and a fire to get warm.

On the day it looks like he and Blaine might be alone in their house again, Kurt takes a walk by himself. He stands on a hill a few miles further out. It's a clear, cold day; he can see and even smell the sea, and closer, he looks down on what has somehow become his world: eight or ten houses in a valley, a stream, and a forest.

He feels strange. He feels he belongs here, in this village, to these people, and he has never felt this before. He is proud of what they achieved, and he feels responsible. Sometimes he thinks he might break under the pressure. When there's a storm, or something they built comes down again, he blames himself, because these are his people, he brought them here. It is a scary feeling, but also...he has friends here, people who rely on him, people who value him for his experience and his intellect. And he has Blaine. Who stood by him through everything, who gave up his whole world, his whole world view, for him, who hasn't asked for anything in return. He couldn't have done anything without Blaine.

And this is why today is so important.

He washes in the river, taking his time although he shivers in the cold air. But he needs the time; he's incredibly nervous, but also, he's impatient: it is time.

In the evening, he and Blaine share a meal in front of their little fire, enjoying the solitude and the warmth and the prospect of sharing their soft bed without having to feel guilty about it. Kurt wouldn't have, necessarily; he has never understood why he should sleep outside on the ground while someone else sleeps in his bed, but Blaine wouldn't have been able to rest easy, and Kurt would rather sleep outside with Blaine than in their bed without him. But now, they finally can sleep here together. Everyone has their own bed, and while not every bed is as comfortable as theirs, that's mostly, Kurt thinks, because only their bed has Blaine in it. Or will have Blaine in it, hopefully soon.

After he's eaten, he rises and rinses the dishes, and then he gets ready for bed. He dons a nightshirt to deflect from his purpose and also because he wants to talk first, and then lies down in the bed.

He must have been somewhat hasty, because when he looks up, Blaine is still sitting at the table, looking bemused before he gets up and follows suit a little more slowly.

Finally, he's in bed with him, and Kurt pulls him close, lets him rest his head on his chest, and—doesn't talk. He draws breath like he wants to, and he does, but courage leaves him, and he exhales silently, keeping the words inside. After a while Blaine notices.

"Kurt, what is it?" he asks.

"I'm in love with you," Kurt blurts out, and then he just keeps talking. "I'm not really sure what that means, actually, but it can't be anything else. You're not only the most important person in my life, you are my life. In the city, when they had taken you, I...I swore myself that if they killed you, I'd make them kill me. It was then I realized, in a rare moment I wasn't obsessed with worrying about you. Just, with everything going on, I somehow neglected to tell you. So. I love you. If...if you still want me to."

Blaine's breath is hot on his chest as he huffs out a laugh and then speaks.

"I knew you'd come to your senses some day."

But his voice sounds frayed, and a little later, Kurt feels wetness gathering where Blaine's cheek is lying on his chest.

"Why are you crying?" he whispers.

"They're good tears, I promise," Blaine says. "I just—that means so much to me, Kurt. I've wanted for you to say that for so long. And what do you mean if I still want you to? Of course I want you to. I've never wanted anything else, never wanted anyone else."

"I just mean...you have options now. Not many...but...it's not just us anymore."

He's glad about the others being here, he is, but sometimes he misses when it was just them.

"I had options in the city," Blaine points out. "I had even more in my hometown, before. I've never wanted anyone the way I want you. Remember when I said I didn't break my promise to not fall in love with you? I didn't, because when I made that promise, I'd already fallen. There's never been anyone but you, Kurt. I've been looking for you forever."

He had lifted his head while he said this, looking at Kurt with bright, earnest, tear-filled eyes, and Kurt makes himself look back and hopes Blaine can see all the things he didn't say, didn't know how to say because there are no words.

"Okay," he whispers, and Blaine puts his head back on his chest as Kurt strokes his hair, and he nearly doesn't say it, but then Blaine starts pressing little kisses on his chest and Kurt really needs this to go his way right now.

"There's something else," he says, and this time he doesn't look at Blaine when again he lifts his head. "I thought you might maybe want to fuck me."

Silence, for a bit, Blaine's thumb stroking little circles on his hip bone, and his own harsh breathing.

Then, Blaine asks, "Do you want me to?"

Kurt nods and shakes his head and laughs a little. "I'm scared. But I will never not be scared, and I really want to do this."

"You know I don't need to, don't you?" Blaine says, worry in his voice.

Kurt nods. "I think I might, though." He's thought about it, and he's come to the conclusion that for this to work, he needs to tell Blaine how he feels, and then he needs to give himself over completely, be as vulnerable as he knows to be. For once, give all he has.

He's determined, but not much else.

Blaine looks at him for a long moment, then seems to understand. He nods. "Okay. But you have to tell me if I hurt you, or if you want to stop. And I want you to try and go about this with an open mind. Think about how much I love when you're doing this to me."

There's kissing, a lot of it, and Blaine doing everything he knows Kurt likes, and it works, it does, but...not the way it could. He's impatient, unable to really enjoy, and Blaine seems to notice, and he gets their little bottle of oil that they have refilled when Santana wasn't looking, and kisses him once more and looks at him until Kurt nods and whispers, "Please," and then, slowly, slowly, pushes an oiled finger into him.

It doesn't hurt. That's as far as he gets in assessing the situation when Blaine asks,

"How does it feel?"

"It feels like there's a finger in my ass," he says, and Blaine grins.

"But when I do this?" He crooks his finger, feeling around like he's searching for something, and,

"Oh," Kurt says as pleasure sparks up his spine. He is still scared, but he thinks that maybe, with Blaine, it can be this—pleasure.

Blaine grins happily and kisses him, and does it again, and again, until Kurt arches off the bed and actually pushes towards Blaine, silently asking for more. He gets it, a second finger joins the first, and it still doesn't hurt, but it is a pressure he can't ignore, a fullness he's not sure he likes. But Blaine's mouth is on his cock now, and that he does like, and as the fingers hit that spot again, he moans and can't seem to stop.

The third finger hurts, but not too bad, and he can feel himself opening, yielding, and then there's oil everywhere, and the fingers are gone, and he's open and empty and impatient, and something presses against him, and inside. He digs his fingers into Blaine's shoulders and looks at him, at his pleasure-slack mouth and his loving eyes, and he smiles shakily and presses against him, drawing him deeper inside.

They fuck. That's what they're doing, he knows that, but it's like something he has never done before, a whole new experience that leaves him unsure and trembling and close to tears. And yet he feels good, so good, and he comes when Blaine touches his cock, spilling his seed and his tears, and he knows he was right. He needed this, they needed this, and when Blaine comes burying his face against his neck, he strokes his hair and smiles.

"They're good tears," he says before Blaine can ask. and he lies while Blaine cleans them up, and then he says,

"I love you."

**This is the last regular chapter. There will be an epilogue, hopefully soon, but I would like to take this opportunity to thank: Voyageasia, for betaing and cheerleading and reccing. It was a pleasure to work with you.**  
**Frank, my game master, for allowing me the use of several words he had coined for our game.**  
**And all of you, for reading, leaving kudos and comments and reviews. Thanks for taking a chance with this and staying with me!**


	20. Chapter 20

Epilogue

Five years later

Sometimes, Kurt feels old.

He's not really old, still shy of his thirtieth year by his own counting. It's hard to keep track sometimes, especially since he's experienced and survived so many things.

He feels older than his years, that's for sure.

He's still here. They are still here, his little village, the people that are now his people.

Sometimes, he can't believe it.

It's been hard, occasionally. They have suffered, and they have lost, but they're still here, and slowly, they get the grip of the land, know how to wrench the most from it, have learned how to survive. They are thriving.

There are a few children running around. New houses have been built as families grew and relationships were formed that required privacy. Their little crooked house fell victim to a savage storm some two years ago, and they have built a new one that is a little bigger, a little less crooked, and has a real chimney instead of a hole in the roof.

The same storm has added three new graves to the one they already had, the one where they had buried the remains of the family that lived here before them.

They have lost three people, and have counted themselves lucky, the storm was that bad. They nearly starved afterwards, as the wind had destroyed what crops they had managed to plant.

Kurt had to overcome his fear and go fishing, and teach others, to bring them over and help add to whatever they could glean by hunting and gathering mushrooms or wild berries.

But they survived, most of them, and they learned and grew stronger.

They work hard. All of them do. They work the fields, make them yield what they can. They catch fish and hunt wild game. A stroke of luck has sent some of them in the path of a few half-wild sheep that somehow have survived. They are now grazing peacefully near the village and are slowly multiplying, and they are a source of wool and milk that is desperately needed.

He's not the one who runs things. He's looking in from the outside, a part and still not a part of everything. He likes it this way. Even so, it gets too much sometimes, the feeling that he still has, of being responsible for so many people. They're here because of him, they are alive because of him, and some have died because of him. It's huge.

So he's happy he's not the one who makes the decisions. That lot falls to Puck and Santana, who are surprisingly good at it, though sometimes they ask for advice. He's okay with that; weirdly, as long as he's not the one who says what is to be done, he's okay with advising what should be done. It's not the same, not to him.

It has been him, for example, who said that every decision should be made outside where everyone could see what's going on and everyone who felt like it could join in. They're few enough people for it to work so it doesn't take forever for a decision to be made. Kurt doesn't want it to be like in the city where no one even knew where Administration was housed. It's good, except when it's raining.

Blaine is one of those who make sure that people abide by the decisions they made, that they follow the few rules they have. He's not the only one, but they are nothing official, have no official name. They're just people who like to watch out for others, and they don't have too much to do.

There's a sense of unity here that Kurt has never encountered before, a sense that they're all in this together, that all of them have to work for all of them to survive. They argue and fight, of course, they're only human, and egotism and greed haven't been eliminated together with most of mankind.

But it's on a smaller scale. Nobody puts their own well being over another's survival.

Kurt doesn't have to go fishing anymore, the people he taught can do it now, but to his surprise, he's found that when everything gets too much, when he longs to be alone, he takes a day and walks to the shore and stands there, letting the waves lick at his feet, and looks into the distance and the endless sea.

Mostly, though, he's surprisingly...happy. He cares for Blaine and for his people, and slowly, he has learned to let himself be cared for occasionally.

He has learned to have sex for a myriad of reasons that have nothing to do with securing his next meal. He has learned to make love. He even occasionally enjoys being fucked, though he's never found the same enthusiasm for it that Blaine has. It doesn't matter, because nothing comes close to watching Blaine come apart because of him, and Blaine never seems to lose his appetite for it. They fit well there, as they do in lost areas.

He still hasn't learned to say I love you often and easily like Blaine does. Maybe he never will. But he says it with things he does and little gestures, when he holds Blaine in his arms at night without turning away, when he makes love to him and loses himself in it without fear, when he cares for people because Blaine cares for them.

And when words are needed after all, when despite everything Blaine starts to doubt them, when they fight—he can say it then. He says, "I love you," with a strong, true voice, without hesitating, without any doubt at all that what he says is true. He can do it now. Blaine has taught him to.


End file.
